Stallion Awards
NZ Stallion Awards
This is the record of the stallions who have led New Zealand harness racing, 535 premierships across eight titles, running back to 1946 and taking in 94 individual horses. Every one of them was decided the same way, on stakes won, not on winners. A stallion does not top this list by getting a lot of horses to the races. He tops it by getting good ones there.
There are four titles on each side. The All Age Sire premiership is the headline award and the oldest, kept since 1946. The 2YO and 3YO premierships have been recorded since 1967 and measure a stallion by his juveniles alone, which is a different test and often a different stallion. The Broodmare Sire premiership is the slowest of them all, because it counts the earnings of horses out of his daughters. It is recorded all age only, and that is by design. A stallion has to wait a generation to appear on it, and by then his own racing sons and daughters are long finished.
The reigns are what catch the eye. Sundon held the trotting sires' title for sixteen consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2016, and is now in his fifteenth straight year as leading trotting broodmare sire. Bettors Delight has led the pacing sires for fourteen years unbroken and counting, and took nine straight two year old titles inside that run. Before them, Light Brigade held the trotting premiership for thirteen years from 1955, and Game Pride matched that from 1981. Vance Hanover had ten in a row, Dillon Hall eight, Quite Sure seven from the very first season recorded.
Across all eight titles, Sundon leads with 50 premierships and Bettors Delight has 43. Behind them come Light Brigade on 33, Game Pride on 32, Vance Hanover on 26, U Scott on 22 and Christian Cullen on 19.
Twenty six stallions appear as both a sire and a broodmare sire, and that double is the truest measure on the page. It says a horse did not simply throw a fast crop, but that his fillies went on to become the mares this country bred from. Nine have gone further again and led both gaits, among them U Scott, Light Brigade, Johnny Globe, Armbro Del, Tuft and Sundon, from an era when the same stallion could be asked to do both jobs.
One caution when reading down the columns. Stakes are recorded as they were in the season concerned and are not adjusted for inflation. Rey De Oro led the pacing broodmare sires in 1946 with $58,506 and Bettors Delight led it in 2025 with $6,708,879. Both were dominant in their own time. The figures are a record of the sport's growth as much as the stallions' merit, so compare a horse against his contemporaries rather than against the top of the list.
NZ Stallion Of The Year Awards
Stallion of the Year is the sport's judgement on a stallion's season, and it sits apart from the leading sires premierships. Those are settled by arithmetic, on stakes won. This one is awarded. Sixty eight titles have been presented across fifty five seasons, and only 24 stallions have ever held it.
For most of its history there was one title and one winner, pacing sires and trotting sires judged against each other on the same night. From 2015/2016 the award was split into pacing and trotting divisions, which is why the roll runs as two columns from that point and a single column before it.
That single title era is worth pausing on, because a trotting sire had to beat the pacing industry outright to win it. Sundon did it four times, in 2002/2003, 2004/2005, 2006/2007 and 2009/2010. Game Pride won it in 1982/1983 and 1983/1984 and shared it with Vance Hanover in 1990/1991. Given the numerical weight of pacing in this country, those are among the most remarkable results anywhere in our record books.
The dominant runs are stark. Bettors Delight has won fifteen titles, five in the combined era from 2010/2011 and every pacing division title but one since the split, an unbroken run interrupted only by Captaintreacherous in 2024. Vance Hanover took nine between 1988 and 1997, including six straight. Majestic Son has six on the trotting side, Sundon and Holmes Hanover four apiece, and Christian Cullen, Game Pride and Lordship three each.
Read alongside the leading stallions honour roll, one thing stands out. Every winner of this award bar one has also led a premiership as a sire or a broodmare sire. The exception is Captaintreacherous, and given the age of his New Zealand crops that is a matter of time rather than merit. The two lists check each other, and they agree almost completely. A stallion the industry votes for is, sooner or later, a stallion the stakes sheet confirms.
Titles have been shared twice, by Game Pride and Vance Hanover in 1990/1991 and by Majestic Son and Volstead in 2024. Both stallions are credited in full on this roll rather than being run together as a single entry.
Choose a gait. Pacing and Trotting each carry the full set of four titles.
Choose a premiership. The chips filter to All Age Sire, 2YO Sire, 3YO Sire or Broodmare Sire. The broodmare sire section is marked all age only, because no juvenile broodmare sire title has ever been kept.
Switch how it reads. By title runs each premiership back through the seasons, most recent first, which is how you follow one championship over time. By season shows every title won in a single year together, so you can see who was leading what in any given season.
Watch the run counter. Under a stallion's name the table shows how many consecutive seasons he had held that title at that point, so a reign builds visibly as you read down. Fourteen in a row against Bettors Delight in 2025 tells the story faster than any paragraph can.
Search anything. The box looks across stallion names, their sires, their dam sires and their families at once, ignoring whatever filters you have set. Search a stallion to see every premiership he has won on either side of the ledger. Search a sire like Albatross or Volomite to see the sons who went on to lead here.
Click a stallion for his full record. A panel opens with his foaling year, family, sire and dam sire, a tally of every title type he has won, and then each premiership listed by season with the stakes figure. U Scott returns 41, spanning his years as a sire and his later years as a broodmare sire.
On a phone each season becomes its own labelled card, so it all works the same on a small screen.
New Zealand Stallion Awards
