Royal Flight, the capable race mare, has been retired. She is booked to fly to Australia tomorrow to be mated with Encosta De Lago.
Royal Flight is owned by White Robe Lodge stud managers Wayne and Karen Stewart, who raced the daughter of Danzighill and Capital Flight with the Lucky 8 syndicate.
Royal Flight won nine races, including the listed Great Easter Handicap (1400m) at Riccarton when trained by Brian and Shane Anderton. She was runner-up at group three level in the Cuddle Stakes (1600m) at Trentham, the Easter Cup (1600m) at Riccarton and third in the Winter Cup (1600m) and Tauranga Classic last season.
She amassed $145,113 in stakes from nine wins and 12 placings in 29 starts.
Encosta De Lago is the sire of 19 individual group one winners including Princess Coup. He stands at a fee of $A110,000 at Coolmore stud in the Hunter Valley.
• A tri-code race meeting will be revived at Invercargill on Friday week. Ascot Park is the only venue in New Zealand where thoroughbred, standardbred and greyhound racing are staged on the same track.
The last tri-code meeting was in 2005 with nine harness races; seven thoroughbred races and 11 greyhound races.
The other tri-code meeting was on Melbourne Cup day in 1994.
Trainer Kelly Thompson, who has candidates for the thoroughbred meeting this year, has won races at the previous two meetings. He was successful with Sonova Gun, ridden by Steven Ramsay and Ascot Gold (Stephanie Clark) in 1994. He won a maiden race with Big Thymer (Jamie Bates) in 2005.
Stu Wilson, the former All Black captain, will be present at a luncheon in conjunction with the tri-code meeting.
