Impressive New Zealand three-year-old Pareanui Bay became Lonhro’s 18th winner of the season when he scored a determined victory in the G2 James and Annie Sarten Memorial Stakes over 1,400m at Te Rapa on Monday, 25 October.
After a gutsy win on debut at the same track on 1 October, overcoming a wide run and racing a little greenly in the home straight, Pareanui Bay franked the form with another tough performance.
Trapped three- and four-wide for the first 800m from barrier 10 in the field of 11 on Monday, the gelding responded to jockey Michael McNab’s urgings to mow down Meritable to score by 0.4 of a length.
Lonhro, a champion of the Australian turf with 26 wins and five placings from 35 starts for prizemoney of $5.79 million, had already sired two Group winners this season in Kementari (G2 Gilgai Stakes) and Mirra Vision (G3 Angst Stakes) in Australia.
While Lonhro has become a champion sire, a sire of champion sires and a champion broodmare sire in his post-racing days, his impressive son Impending will carry his legacy.
Pareanui Bay could be leading trainer Tony Pike’s next big thing, beating more experienced rivals despite having much harder runs in his two visits to the races.
The three-year-old, owned by Brent and Cherry Taylor and bred by Trelawney Thoroughbred out of Australian mare Okahu Bay, covered the 1,400m in a smart 1min 23.63sec on a track officially rated a Dead 5.
Judging by his ability to absorb early pressure and still find the line, Pareanui Bay looks like a possible middle-distance star of the future as his dam was a black-type winner of the South Australian Jockey Club Fillies Classic over 2,500m in 2015.
Pareanui Bay has an older half-sister, Orakei, by More Than Ready (USA) which has had just one start for a fourth placing.
Lonhro stands at Darley’s plush Kelvinside property in the NSW Hunter Valley for a service fee of $66,000, including GST.
