Shamexpress kicks off exciting spring in style
Richard Edmunds - Raceform • August 29th, 2025 12:00 PM
A one-three finish in the Gr. 2 Foxbridge Plate last Saturday provided a perfect start to what could be a career-defining spring for Shamexpress.
The Windsor Park Stud stallion was credited with his 15th individual stakes winner when Sterling Express took his first step up into Group company with a super-impressive last-to-first performance at Te Rapa. He was one of two runners in the $150,000 weight-for-age race for Shamexpress, who was also represented by the strong-finishing third placegetter Dusty Road.
“What a perfect way to start the spring for Shamexpress, who’s picked up right where he left off last season,” Windsor Park’s general manager Steve Till told RaceForm.
“For quite some time, the word coming through to us was that Sterling Express was a very good horse in the making, and that’s proving to be the case.
“His owner-breeder Gloria Macrae has been a long client of ours, and her father was also a long-term client of the farm. We go way back. Gloria doesn’t sell many horses and races the majority of them herself, so it’s fantastic to see her get a result like that.
“Sterling Express handled the step up to weight-for-age outstandingly well on Saturday, so it’s exciting times heading into the Group One races that are coming up. For Dusty Road to also finish third was really the icing on the cake in that race.”
Meanwhile, another son of Shamexpress was making waves some 9000 kilometres away. Hong Kong’s superstar sprinter Ka Ying Rising took his preparation for The Everest up a notch with a dazzling trial at Sha Tin, winning by 14 and a quarter lengths and clocking 59.26 seconds for 1050 metres.
The David Hayes-trained Ka Ying Rising is an overwhelming favourite for the A$20 million The Everest at Randwick on October 18. The TAB currently offers a quote of $1.80 for the reigning Hong Kong Horse of the Year, with Briasa and Private Harry sharing distant second favouritism at $7.
“Ka Ying Rising trialled extremely well last week,” Till said. “He appears to have returned in similar form to what he showed in Hong Kong last season. He’s a very hot favourite for The Everest, which is exciting for us, for Shamexpress and the New Zealand industry as a whole.
“It’s a bit of an unknown, with him coming in from overseas and not having raced in Australia before. But he’s rated the world’s best sprinter, and you can get an idea of how he stacks up from the times he’s been running. The fact that the Hayes team has that Australian connection and is so bullish about his chances also boosts our confidence.
“It’s a rare achievement for a New Zealand-based stallion to sire a horse in any category that is considered world-leading. A few years ago we bred Aerovelocity, another top-class Hong Kong sprinter who was close to that title. He displayed his ability on the international stage with Group One wins in Japan and Singapore, so it’s exciting to think we might have a bit of that history repeating this spring.”
Arion Pedigrees statistics now credit Shamexpress with 153 winners from just 234 runners. His 15 stakes winners are headed by Ka Ying Rising and Coventina Bay, both multiple winners at the elite level, while Grinzinger Belle has collected four victories at Group Two and Group Three level in Melbourne.
“Shamexpress has shown an ability to upgrade the mares he’s bred to, and he’s shown that from the time he went to stud,” Till said. “Coventina Bay was an early example. She came from a good family but just needed a bit of a boost higher up in the pedigree, and he provided that. Sterling Express is probably similar in some respects. When they can lift mares and families and take them to the next level, that’s the hallmark of a very good stallion. He keeps doing that and we’re lucky to have him.
“We couldn’t have wished for a better start to the season. He’s got some good young horses coming through the grades as well, which might set him up for one of his best seasons.
“He finished third in the Centaine Award standings for worldwide progeny earnings, beaten only by Per Incanto and Savabeel. That’s a great achievement by a stallion that’s still relatively young.
“He paraded in great condition yesterday (Sunday). He’s been very well supported throughout his career.
“His strike rate in terms of stakes winners to runners is outstanding. Any stallion over 5% is very good, but he’s knocking on the door of 7%. He’s versatile too, producing very good fillies and colts who perform over a range of distances and across New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong.
“We elevated his fee to $20,000 on the back of Ka Ying Rising’s deeds last season, and he’s getting more interest this spring than ever.”
But despite hitting some of the greatest heights of his career, Shamexpress has to share the spotlight with more recent additions to the Windsor Park roster – Group One winners Paddington, Auguste Rodin, Profondo and Circus Maximus.
“Paddington’s first foals have started arriving,” Till said. “He’s a magnificent-looking horse himself, so you’d be disappointed if he didn’t leave good-looking foals. The first few have lived right up to expectations.
“Paddington has all the physical attributes that we look for as breeders, and he’s beautifully balanced and moves like a gazelle. The fact that he won four Group One races within the space of 68 days doesn’t hurt either. It’s an absolute pleasure to have a horse like him.
“He has interesting genetics, being by a sire that hasn’t been represented by a stallion in New Zealand before (Siyouni). But further up the sire line is Nureyev, and that same sire line also gave us an enormously successful stallion in Thorn Park.
“We’re also looking forward to the first yearlings by Profondo, a Group One-winning son of Deep Impact who has been so well received since coming to stud, while the first three-year-olds by Circus Maximus are about to kick off too. We’ve had plenty of good feedback about his progeny. We were pleased with his two-year-old season, and his progeny look like progressive horses that will get up over a bit of ground, which they’ve done overseas.”
But perhaps the most exciting of all is Auguste Rodin, the winner of six Group One races including the Epsom Derby, Irish Derby, Prince Of Wales’s Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Turf. He will stand his first season at Windsor Park Stud this season, fully booked at a service fee of $30,000.
“He’s special,” Till enthused. “I’d liken him to another horse that we stood in the past, the great High Chaparral. They have very similar physical attributes – both very athletic, high quality and good-moving horses.
“His female line has an edge on most other stallions at stud in Australasia, He’s out of a champion multiple Group One winner (the Galileo mare Rhododendron), while his second dam was a triple Group One winner including the Irish 1000 Guineas (Pivotal mare Halfway To Heaven) and the third dam won the King’s Stand Stakes (Indian Ridge mare Cassandra Go). They’re exceptional bloodlines and he was one of Deep Impact’s very best sons.
“He’s a Coolmore homebred. John Magnier says the purpose of their breeding programme is to achieve horses like him. They thought Galileo mares would suit Deep Impact.
“By Coolmore’s rating system, Auguste Rodin was always right at the top of the foals they had on the farm that year, and he went on to become a great racehorse.
“It’s a privilege to have a horse like him on our roster and be able to offer him to New Zealand breeders. It’s no surprise he filled his book within the first few days.
“Those quality horses are what the market is after. He suits the profile of our gene pool here, which we’ve built New Zealand’s success on over many decades. I think there’s a lot to look forward to.”
