![\"Habana](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/breednet-images-habana-nyd-18448.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSouth Africa will tackle the All Blacks at Eden Park on Saturday night and earlier in the day a horse named after one of their favourite sons will be vying for Group One glory down the road at Ellerslie Racecourse.<\/p>\n
Cambridge Stud\u2019s Habana is named after former springbok Bryan Habana, who showed electrifying speed on the wing in his 124 tests for South Africa.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His equine namesake has inherited some of that speed, having won eight of his 24 starts, including the Gr.2 Rich Hill Mile (1600m) and Listed Fulton Family Stakes (1500m).<\/p>\n
The seven-year-old gelding commenced his campaign with a pleasing third placing behind Tuxedo over 1400m at Ruakaka last month, pleasing his trainer Lance Noble ahead of Saturday\u2019s Gr.1 Proisir Plate (1400m).<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty happy with his first-up run,\u201d Noble said. \u201cHe had 62 kilos, the track deteriorated, and he likes a Good track. That is the beauty about Ellerslie, it will be good ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe missed most of last year through having colic surgery. He has done a lot of work and I am happy with him, he is nice and bright.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he is back to his form before he had his surgery, I think he will be competitive. In saying that, it is a fantastic field on Saturday, that is the best of the best in New Zealand, so it won\u2019t be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noble will also be represented at the meeting by First Dance in the Sistema 1100.<\/p>\n
The four-year-old daughter of Zousain represented owner Cambridge Stud\u2019s slot in the inaugural $3.5 million NZB Kiwi (1500m) at Ellerslie on March, finishing 12th, before being spelled.<\/p>\n
She has had the one lead-in trial, finishing fourth over 950m on the Cambridge Synthetic last month, and Noble is hopeful of his mare featuring in the finish this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is fresh-up and trialled up nicely,\u201d Noble said. \u201c1100m is probably a bit short for her on Saturday, but she is nice and fresh, and rather than going back for a trial, we can run at Ellerslie for good money and hopefully get some of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Karaka-based Noble will head north to Ruakaka on Wednesday with two runners, including three-year-old filly Heloisia in The Homestead Sports Bar and Bistro 1200.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am happy with her,\u201d Noble said. \u201cShe had two starts last season for a couple of nice thirds. She developed nicely from two to three and her trial was good the other day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith a three-year-old filly it is all about how they handle the spring, mentally and physically, and at the moment she is doing really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stablemate Daring Dame will also head north to contest the Kensington Tavern 1200.<\/p>\n
The four-year-old mare has placed in all four of her starts to date, and Noble is confident she can breakthrough for her maiden win first-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had four good runs last year, she has just taken a bit of time to strengthen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year she was still a little bit weak. She has furnished again with the spell, and I think she will have a big campaign this time. I think she will go through the grades fairly quickly.\u201d \u2013 LOVERACING.NZ News Desk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa will tackle the All Blacks at Eden Park on Saturday night and earlier in the day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-108360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}