NZ champion in shock stable switch

Friday 25 January 2013, 8:55pm

New Zealand champion Mufhasa has been removed from trainer Stephen McKee following a dispute involving his strapper.

Owner David Archer took the the 10-time Group One winner out of the stable and transferred him to Bruce Wallace where Amy Doran, who left McKee's employ earlier this month, will look after him.

Two other horses have also gone to Wallace who is a near neighbour of McKee in south east Auckland.

Archer issued a statement published by the Waikato Times, saying he held McKee in the "highest regard both as a person and as a master trainer" but it was in the horse's best interests.

"Our decision to change training stables centred around our belief that the continued care of Mufhasa by his lifelong caregiver and companion, strapper Amy Doran, was vital to Mufhasa's wellbeing, particularly at this late stage in his career, after seven uninterrupted years of the pair being together, something Stephen was not prepared to allow to continue," Archer said.

Wallace said Mufhasa, who races as King Mufhasa in Australia, would follow the program set out by McKee to contest either the Waikato Draught Sprint on February 9 or the CF Orr Stakes in Melbourne on the same day.

Two of Mufhasa's Group One wins - the 2011 Toorak Handicap and last year's Futurity Stakes - have been at Caulfield, the venue for the Orr Stakes.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »