Sixth Stakes Win for Nashville (NZ) in Winter Cup

Dual Group 1 winner Nashville (NZ) (Darci Brahma), who was bought for $40,000 at the Ready to Run Sale back in 2010, picked up a sixth stakes win and moved within sight of $1 million in prize-money when he took out Saturday’s $100,000 Group 3 eStar 120th Winter Cup (1600m) at Riccarton.

The gelding’s trophy cabinet already featured two runnings of the Group 1 Haunui Farm WFA Classic, as well as the Group 2 Coupland’s Bakeries Mile and Group 3 Canterbury Gold Cup and Trentham Stakes.

He may have turned nine this week but Nashville turned back the clock, charging home from second-last in a 17-horse field. He raced past his opposition and scored by a widening margin of two and a quarter lengths, in the process setting a new metric weight-carrying record for the Winter Cup (60 kilograms).

Nashville was bred by Olympic medal-winning former equestrian Blyth Tait under his Chesterfields banner. Owned by Adrian and Robyn Bull and trained by Adrian in partnership with son Harry, Nashville has now had 65 starts for 13 wins, 14 placings and more than $940,000 in prize-money.

Nashville’s Winter Cup win completed a successful day for the Bulls, who also had Humble Pie (NZ) (Sakhee’s Secret) score a runaway win in the $25,000 New Zealand Bloodstock Three-Year-Old (1200m) earlier in the afternoon.