Aroda on NSW Derby trail
By Peter Wharton
A top three-year-old colt in Queensland this season – he has won twice from three attempts – is Aroda, by Art Major from Adore To Our Dreams, by Christian Cullen. He underlined his potential with a crushing win after sitting parked throughout at a midweek meeting at Albion Park recently.
The half-brother to the 2021 NZ 2YO Colt of the Year and dual derby winner Akuta is now being aimed at the NSW Derby with heats on February 25 and the $200,000 Final at Menangle on March 4.
Aroda wins at Albion Park – Dan Costello Photography
Christchurch breeder-owner, benefactor and harness racing devotee Paul Renwick and his wife Pauline, who bred Aroda, was originally planning to campaign the colt himself in Australia.
“My grandson Darren Keast was going to take him over but we decided to sell him to a client of Grant Dixon in December,” Renwick said. “Dixon had bought Bold Medley off us two months earlier and he won a string of races with him.”
Aroda is raced by Albion Park vice-chairman and prominent owner-breeder Greg Mitchell.
Renwick, the managing owner of Paul Renwick Joinery, sponsors of Addington and the Canterbury clubs for 45 years, bought Adore To Our Dream’s mother Enchanter Franco off the estate of his great friend Wayne Francis, who founded Nevele R Stud with the late Bob McArdle.
Enchanted Franco, a Badlands Hanover mare from the Berthabell USA family, won two races and left four winners and two producing mares from six foals and really established this branch of the Berthabell tribe to some purpose.
She ranked as the dam of two high class pacers in Patanjali (1:54), a winner of 22 races in NZ and America and $146,939 in stakes and Paravani (1:53.2), a winner of 12 races and $120,326, and to a lesser extent, Buscemi (1:56.9), an Albion Park winner.
Besides Akuta and Aroda, Adore To Our Dreams produced the Group 3 Queensland winner Avana 1:55 ($132,403), the Gloucester Park winner Fulfil The Dream (1:55), who is now being bred from in Western Australia, and Adhara, a Bettor’s Delight mare who Renwick sold as a yearling and later bought back as a broodmare. She has a filly foal at foot by Always B Miki and is safely in foal to Captaintreacherous.
Reklaw, a sister to Adore To Our Dreams, became the dam of the WA Navy Cup winner Corelli 1:50.6 ($425,515) and the Smoken Up Sprint winner Rishi 1:50.2 ($253,942).
“It’s a developing breed,” Renwick summed up.