{"id":201959,"date":"2025-12-26T00:25:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T00:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/201959\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T00:25:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T00:25:17","slug":"nzb-filly-of-the-year-series-standouts-set-to-shine-at-ellerslie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/201959\/","title":{"rendered":"NZB Filly of the Year Series Standouts Set to Shine at Ellerslie"},"content":{"rendered":"

The top two fillies on the\u00a0NZB Filly of the Year Series<\/a>\u00a0leaderboard will both be among the many stars stepping out at Ellerslie on Boxing Day, but they will be in different races.<\/p>\n

\"El<\/p>\n

The 10-race card features the sixth leg of the NZB Filly of the Year Series, the Group Two Hallmark Stud Eight Carat Classic (1600m). The quality line-up for that $270,000 feature is headed by\u00a0Lollapalooza<\/a>\u00a0(NZ) (El Roca), who sits in second place on the table with 16 points.<\/p>\n

She is 4 points behind the benchmark filly\u00a0Well Written<\/a>\u00a0(Written Tycoon), who is unbeaten in three starts and earned 20 points with her runaway victories in the Group Two Soliloquy Stakes (1400m) and Group One New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m). However, those are likely to be her only two appearances in the NZB Filly of the Year Series. Well Written\u2019s Boxing Day assignment is the Group Two Jimmy Schick Shaw\u2019s Auckland Guineas (1400m), which is a stepping stone towards the $1.5m TAB Karaka Millions 3YO (1600m) and the $4m NZB Kiwi (1500m).<\/p>\n

Well Written\u2019s absence could leave an opening for Lollapalooza to reclaim the NZB Filly of the Year Series lead, which she previously held after winning the series-opening Group Three Gold Trail Stakes (1200m) back in September. She has gone on to compete in three of the four legs since then, finishing second in the Group Three Sunline Vase (1400m), fifth in the Soliloquy Stakes and second in the 1000 Guineas.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps the Eight Carat Classic could be a breakout moment for a new star of the three-year-old filly crop.\u00a0Circus Dancer\u00a0(NZ) (Circus Maximus) and\u00a0Pulsatilla\u00a0(NZ) (Redwood) both come into the race as last-start Listed winners of the O\u2019Learys Fillies\u2019 Stakes (1340m) and Trevor & Corallie Eagle Memorial (1500m) respectively,\u00a0Savvy Donna\u00a0(NZ) (Savabeel) was an eye-catching fourth in the Soliloquy Stakes two starts back, and many others in the field have been highly impressive recent winners in lower grades.<\/p>\n

The winner of the Eight Carat Classic will earn 8 points in the NZB Filly of the Year Series, with 4 for second and 2 for third.<\/p>\n

The Hallmark Stud Eight Carat Classic will be run as Race 7 on an exceptional Boxing Day card at Ellerslie on Friday, with a scheduled start time of 4.18pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top two fillies on the\u00a0NZB Filly of the Year Series\u00a0leaderboard will both be among the many stars…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-201959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}