Fortuna Mare MELODY BELLE wins 2019 Horse Of The Year Title

MELODY BELLE was the star of the show at the Annual New Zealand Thoroughbred Awards Evening held at the Ellerslie Event Centre Sunday 8th September. Attended by 500 people at a sold out venue, the Fortuna Syndicated, David Ellis selected and Jamie Richards trained Five Year Old Mare, won two awards, the Champion Sprinter/Miler of the Year and Horse of the Year and was narrowly defeated by DanzDanzDance (32 votes to 30) in the Champion Middle Distance category. Fortuna Principals John and Jessica Galvin were on hand along with 50 supporters of Melody Belle including many of the 37 Syndicate Members plus family and friends.

John Galvin in accepting the Horse Of The Year Award, described the experience as “exciting, thrilling and humbling” and paid tribute to all of the Syndicate Members who had taken shares in Melody Belle as well as David Ellis for selecting the horse on behalf of Fortuna from the Premier draft of the 2016 Karaka Sale and Jamie Richards for training the horse so successfully. John also pointed out that it was the second time in 2019 that a Te Akau trained horse had won a Horse Of the Year Award, the other being the Mark Walker trained Elite Invincible, who was awarded the Singapore equivalent Award in January for his achievements during the 2018 Singapore Season.

Click HERE to read full story from NZ Breeding and Racing News of the Awards evening

Melody Belle winning her 5th Group One of the 2018/19 Season – the New Zealand Bone Crusher Stakes at Ellerslie 9th March 2019