17/06/2026
Snuggle up and enjoy another retro
After a pretty emotional weekend for fans of our great sport, we thought it was time to share another retro video from the archives.
This week we head back to the start of the century – literally – for an unusual spectacle – a full field of steeplechasers going over the famed Ellerslie hill on a firm track.
It was the $75,000 Millenium Steeplechase – an idea of the late Kenny Browne – and of course the theory was for it to be the first steeplechase in the world for the new Millenium.
It’s not your typical watch – they’re running a lot faster than usual and due to the huge crowd on course, they didn’t go through the middle of the track for the water jump or stand double.
It was a thrilling race, ultimately – and fittingly – won by the Ann and Ken Browne-trained, Snuggle.
He was an accomplished hurdler (five wins) that had just pivoted to steeples the previous winter.
He clearly loved the bigger fences and firmer tracks because he won well in the hands of visiting Australian rider, Adam Trinder.
It was to be his last jumping start in New Zealand – just two months later, the Brownes sent him to America to race in two big Group 1 hurdle races.
He ran third first-up in the Gr.1 US$100,000 Carolina Cup Hurdle at Camden in South Carolina - with Trinder over there to ride him - and was later promoted to second after the winner was disqualified.
Four weeks later he was at Keeneland, Kentucky for the Gr.1 US$175,000 Royal Chase For The Sport Of Kings Hurdle.
With Trinder again on board, he looked home and hosed, only to fall at the last fence.
It was three years before he returned to the races for different owners, but he did bounce back somewhat – winning twice and placing six times over timber fences – at age 12 and 13.
Snuggle is definitely one of those ‘what might have been’ stories – he was one fence away from winning a prestige jumping race in New Zealand and one of the biggest jumps races in North America in the space of four months.
Ann Browne would later go on to win over $100,000 with Snuggle’s younger half-brother, Poacher, who won the Inter Island Steeplechase at Paeroa.
While it doesn’t happen anymore due to the huge cost of flights - the last NZ jumpers sold to America were in 2020 – in the 1990s and 2000s it was common for big offers to come the way of New Zealand owners for their burgeoning jumpers.
In fact, it was around the same time Snuggle went to America that the Brownes sold a seemingly average maiden flat galloper called Praise The Prince ‘stateside’.
He would go on to be one of the greatest jumpers ever in North America, winning more than US$600,000 (the equivalent of about NZ$1.9 million currently) and three Group 1s.
Other New Zealand-bred horses to win Group 1s over the sticks in North America included the Mark Oulaghan-trained Rand, the former Kevin Myers-trained Sydenham Hurdles winner, Gliding and Zabenz, who left here for Aussie as a one-win flat galloper and went on to be a top jumper across the ditch, then in America and England.
- Garrick Knight
