Third Haunui Farm graduate locked in for NZB Kiwi

Haunui Farm now has three representatives in the 2026 NZB Kiwi with Te Akau Racing announcing they have settled on He Who Dares (Snitzel x Rondinella) for their slot.

Bred in partnership by Frantic and Haunui Bloodstock, He Who Dares is by Champion sire Snitzel and out of Group One performer Rondinella (NZ) (Ocean Park), and he was offered through Haunui Farm’s 2024 New Zealand Bloodstock Book 1 National Yearling Sale draft.

Te Akau Racing principal David Ellis was taken by the colt when inspecting him at the Karaka stud farm and again at NZB’s Karaka Sales Centre, and he was determined to bring him home.

“We bought him from one of New Zealand’s great farms in Haunui,” Ellis said.

“When inspecting him I put down – ‘an obvious two-year-old type, physically well conformed, athletic, forward, mature, will train on and be a really good three-year-old and beyond’ and I wrote ‘just buy’.”

And buy he did, with his final bid of $825,000 securing the blueblood colt. 

He Who Dares has gone on to vindicate Ellis’ early assessment, with the colt winning on debut as a juvenile before finishing runner-up to his subsequent Group One-winning stablemate Return To Conquer (Snitzel) in the $150,000 Group Three Fairview Matamata Slipper (1200m).

He picked up where he left off as a three-year-old, finishing runner-up first-up in the Listed Sir Colin Meads Trophy (1200m), and ran undefeated Group One-winning filly, and The NZB Kiwi favourite, Well Written (AUS) (Written Tycoon) close in the $270,000 Group Two Jimmy Schick Shaw's Auckland Guineas (1400m), and was runner-up to her again last start in the $1.5 million TAB Karaka Millions 3YO (1600m).

“We couldn’t be happier with him and the boys (trainers Mark Walker and Sam Bergerson) have been very excited about the way he has been working,” Ellis said. -NZ Thoroughbred Racing