NZB Royal Stakes Presents First Staying Challenge

New Year’s Day racing at Ellerslie will see a quality field of fillies step up to 2000 metres for the sixth leg of New Zealand Bloodstock’s Filly of the Year Series – the $100,000 Group 2 New Zealand Bloodstock Royal Stakes.

The race will see 13 fillies contest the Group 2 race with eight of the three-year-olds backing up from Boxing Day, including Group 2 Eight Carat Classic winning filly Fix (Iffraaj) and Group 2 Great Northern Guineas winner Habibi (Ekraar).

Fix currently sits in second place in NZB’s Filly of the Year Series with 11.5 points and a win by the daughter of Iffraaj – or her race rival Soriano – would see them take the lead in the Series.

Both Fix and Habibi were very impressive in their Group 2 victories on 26 December and head a good field of fillies which includes stakes winners Misstrum (Stratum), Soriano (Savabeel) – who ran second in the Eight Carat Classic – Emerald Queen (O’Reilly), Twilight Granita (Iffraaj) and Ray's Girl (Savabeel).

Perfect Start (Perfectly Ready) and The Darling One (Lonhro) both will be backing up from the Eight Carat Classic – with The Darling One running a good third – and they are joined by Regalia (Duelled) and Kidwelly (Dylan Thomas) who also raced on Boxing day with Kidwelly running fifth to Habibi in the Great Northern Guineas.

Sultry Assassin (Keeper) and Angel's Share (Cecconi) complete the field and both fillies come into the race after competing in the fourth leg of the Series – the Group 3 Eulogy Stakes.

To view the current points table for the Filly of the Year Series, click here.

The $100,000 New Zealand Bloodstock Royal Stakes (2000m) will be held at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day at 4.20pm NZ time. To view the fields for the meeting, click here.