News at The Pond

Patience pays dividends for Pond Clients

A patient approach taken with promising racehorse Mach Schnell paid winning dividend in Sydney, Australia during 2022 for a dozen faithful Pond clients. 

During a client function at the Ellerslie Twilight Christmas races in December 2019 it was decided The Pond Recruitment would give away 10 free shares in a racehorse - A high risk client promotion which was either going to go one of two ways; bad or good.

The Pond founder, Leighton Howl (Wannabee veterinarian, turned advertising guy in his twenties) owned the unnamed horse at the time with big hopes of winning on the track after buying him at Karaka Yearling Sale in 2018.

“Getting 50 clients to racing event at Christmas time is not an easy task, but once they were there giving away ten shares in a racehorse became a lot less difficult, especially when you add champagne, loud music and an action-packed seven race card at Ellerslie ,” Leighton Howl said.

The whole “owning a racehorse” venture started very slowly for everyone involved, not helped by Covid, which put the New Zealand racing industry and Mach’s career on hold for over 12 months. 

But eventually Mach Schnell made it to the races and after running second in his first start we got an inkling that maybe this client promotion wasn’t going to be disaster after all.

Before arriving in Sydney, the toughest and most competitive racing jurisdiction in the world, Mach was initially trained in New Zealand by Auckland couple Shaun and Emma Clotworthy. While under their care he exhibited plenty of promise but greenness and a lack of physical maturity combined to thwart his winning aspirations early, running a series of placings in his first eight starts. However, those factors looked to have been overcome in the summer of 2022, during his second NZ campaign, where he put together two sensational wins in the local top grade.

After some initial doubts, a competitive spirit, untold amounts of hope, the group of 12 owners decided it was time for Mach to get on the plane and head to Sydney, to be kept under the care of one of Australia’s top trainers, Joe Pride.

Racing in “The Pond Blue” jockey silks, Mach Schnell got off to a flying start winning his second start in Australia at Randwick, before going on to win two more races. Then on 24th Dec 2022 at Royal Randwick, Mach Schnell delivered the owners an early Christmas gift, winning the $165,000 Bisley Workwear Handicap, his most significant win to date, having come up big earlier that year at Rosehill in Sydney as well.

Mach has proven a profitable horse for the owners over the 3 year journey winning $247,000 in stakes. In fact, if you had backed Mach Schnell at the TAB throughout his career you'd have achieved an impressive 47% return on investment across all his starts to date.

With a-lot more fun to come, Mach Schnell kicks off his 2023 racing campaign in mid-April in Sydney against some of the best horses in the world. 

Mach is Go!