Angels Halo wins New Zealand 1000 Guineas for Hollie Elliot and Masa Hashizume
Proisir filly Angels Halo won the Group 1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas at Riccarton at $15, giving jockey Masa Hashizume his first Group 1 and Cambridge trainer Hollie Elliot her first since going out on her own.
Angels Halo, rated a $15 chance with the TAB in the lead-up, won the $600,000 Group 1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas over 1600 metres at Riccarton on Saturday, delivering Masa Hashizume his first Group 1 and Hollie Elliot her first at the level as a sole trainer, having previously won Group 1s in partnership with Johno Benner.
The Proisir filly beat Dashing Dixie by three quarters of a length, with Asturia, who had opened at $2 after the barrier draw on the back of her Soliloquy Stakes win, a further 1-3/4 lengths away in third.
Angels Halo raced in blinkers for the first time, with her tongue tie removed, after finishing eighth in the Group 2 James & Annie Sarten Memorial over 1400 metres at Te Rapa on Labour Day.
“We put the tongue tie on her, and she didn’t really like it, so we thought we would take that off and put the blinkers on. She is a pretty laidback sort of filly and it has worked the oracle,” Elliot told NZ Racing News.
She missed the start from barrier two but quickly found the rail behind the leaders, where So Fear handed up to On Piste. Angels Halo improved along the inside on the turn, hit the front 300 metres out and held off Dashing Dixie, despite shying at the big screen.
“I thought it was over and she had stopped running, so I was like ‘don’t stop, don’t stop’, and she was just tough,” Hashizume said.
Hashizume revealed the ride had been in doubt after the Sarten Memorial. “She (Elliot) was a bit disappointed last time and was fifty-fifty of whether coming or not. I was getting another offer, so I was like ‘are we going or not?’ Hollie was confident that she was going to run top three, so I stuck with her,” he said.
The pair had already combined for black-type success when Archaic Smile won the Listed Flying Handicap over 1400 metres at Trentham on March 28.
Elliot, who trained as Hollie Wynyard before marrying former jockey Ryan Elliot this year, went out on her own in the 2024-25 season after almost a decade with Benner, a partnership that produced two Group 1 winners and a Karaka Million three-year-old race.
Hashizume, who moved to Christchurch from Fukuoka in 2014, rode Angels Halo to her maiden win at Ruakaka on September 2. Her fourth against the colts in the Group 2 Hawke’s Bay Guineas preceded the Sarten run.
Angels Halo is out of the I Am Invincible mare Mongolian Angel and was bred by Hospitality Rentals Ltd. She races for M J & S L Hardy, C Hardy, K Hardy, A Collings & L Collings, and R Tangye & B Tangye.
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