Mufhasa Wins NZ Horse Of The Year
- Saturday, 08 August 2009 00:00
Mufhasa was crowned New Zealand Horse of the Year at the annual Mercedes thoroughbred racing awards in Christchurch on Friday night.
Mufhasa, who was also unanimously selected as champion sprinter, captured 33 of a total 50 votes to take the supreme award for the 2008-09 season, defeating other category winners Princess Coup (middle distance) Daffodil (three-year-old) and The Heckler (two-year-old).
Mufhasa, trained by Stephen McKee of Sunline fame, is jointly owned by David, Natalie and Simon Archer and Diane Wright, who were owners of the year.
During the season Mufhasa won the Group One Waikato Sprint, the Group One Telegraph Handicap and the Group Two Coupland's Bakeries Mile.
He has had 11 wins from 23 career starts and won $NZ1,156,057 ($A923,995) in stakes.
The people's choice award also went to Mufhasa.
Nom Du Jeu won the champion stayer title.
James McDonald won both champion jockey and champion apprentice titles.
The youngster only started riding two years ago but in the past season he had 125 wins including the Group One New Zealand Oaks.
Mark Walker, who had 102 season wins, was an easy winner of the champion trainer title.
Jo Rathbone won the jumps jockey award and Great Northern Steeples winner Hypnotize was the jumper of the year.
Garry Chittick was breeder of the year after having six individual Group One winners for the season, while Gussy Godiva, dam of AJC Australian Derby winner Roman Emperor, was named broodmare of the year.
Stallion honours were divided between Zabeel, Volksraad and O'Reilly.
