Client Spotlight - Petrina & Allan Shutkowski

For Blenheim couple Petrina and Allan Shutkowski harness racing isn’t just part of their life, it is their life.

And for Petrina in particular, she pretty much didn’t have a say in the matter but it didn’t take long to win her over.

“Allan was the one who had the interest, he had two uncles that were involved in the harness racing industry,” Petrina explained.

“He hadn’t really been fully involved himself until in the 80’s he decided to get into a syndicate that he saw advertised with a pacing mare.”

“But even though the horse didn’t race Allan had met a farmer who was in the syndicate and they thought they would have a go and breed from her instead. So that’s how he got started and then got into training himself eventually.”

“And then of course you need someone to muck out to start with, and then get in the cart, and so it really just went from there for me.”

After being dragged into the harness world, and loving every minute, Petrina and Allan continued breeding horses whilst training their own team.

They first sent a mare to Wai Eyre Farm in the 1980’s when the late Mike Brown was running the farm, before it expanded into the large farm it is today.

“In the 80s we had a mare that we leased that was going down south to go to Majestic Chance, and she wasn’t in the best condition so we sent her to Wai Eyre with Mike.”

“We had her there until she was in good enough condition to go down south.”

The past ten years however, Petrina and Allan have been sending mares to Wai Eyre Farm, as specialist vet services became increasingly unavailable in Blenheim.

“Back in the early days we would breed the mares and take them to various studs and then bring them home, it wasn’t really centralised like it is now.”

“We had a great vet here, David Sim, and he was basically on call for you whenever you needed, around foaling and the likes. But he has now retired and there isn’t really that person that you can call at 2am needing help anymore,” said Petrina.

“So it just made sense to have the mares at a stud farm and have that standard of care for them and the foals.”

The couple are frequently in the Canterbury region, be it for races, general or any horse purposes, so are able to pop in to the farm.

“We get down to Christchurch quite a bit with the horses, we’ve just dropped three yearlings off to Kyle Cameron to be broken in,” Petrina explained.

“And we visited our foals at Wai Eyre as well. We’ve got one that’s been weaned recently, who is by Pebble Beach out of Tia Dalma.”

“Anna does a great job with the weanlings, and she could pick our boy out of the paddock of weanlings straight away. She said he’s making his way through to see us, and in a paddock of bay foals she knew him.”

“She had a long connection working with his second dam, Last Port Of Call, which is pretty cool. So she has an interest in him of course, but she always takes such great care of all of them.”

“We’re really happy with the service we have had from Wai Eyre over the years, the communication and care has been great. Nothing is ever a problem.”

Their mares on farm include Tia Dalma, a McArdle mare who won two of her 18 starts.

Tia Dalma first left a Lazarus filly, who is now two-years-old, and so far so good in her early education.

“She’s nicely gaited and she does everything you ask of her. She doesn’t want to stop on the job or anything like that.”

“She does however want her tail back, Allan ties her tail and we have a couple of laps of her trying to get it back. But that’s kind of good too, it shows she’s got a bit of a determined nature, a bit of fight in her.”

Tia Dalma has also left a Sweet Lou colt, who proceed this season’s Pebble Beach foal.

Petrina and Allan also have on farm a Royal Aspirations colt, out of a Net Ten EOM mare, Easy McCartney.

Yes, you read that right. Quite the mixed gait cross.

“She didn’t want to pace at all. We did qualify her as a pacer but she didn’t really like doing that. So we trotted her and she ran three placings. So in the end we’d never bred a trotter so we bred one,” Petrina laughed.

“She’s dual gaited and I mean it’s a real outcross situation isn’t it? You don’t have to worry about any double ups when you’re looking for a stallion.”

Being based in Blenheim means long trips away at times with the racing team, but it hasn’t ever felt like isolation from the industry for them.

“In the early days there were quite a few people training here and training horses at the track.”

“Lots of people willing to help out, pass on knowledge or helpful information.”

“But yeah if you are training from here it does mean a bit of travel, so we go to Palmerston North quite a bit and even though it is seven hours all up and a trip over water it is a bit of an easier trip for the horses.”

“The field sizes do make it a bit easier, but the club have been great offering up good stake money. So that all helps.”

“You really do need to go with a full float though obviously with the cost of the trip, and we have a three horse float so we would take them all up.”

Petina and Allan currently have five horses in work at their stable and continue their breeding journey and mission for the next good horse.

“The best one we’ve bred was probably a horse named Todski. He was out of De Angelis, she was one of Ted Lowe’s breed.”

“She was a big strong Keystone Provider mare who won two races. But she damaged her leg and we were able to send her to Cam’s Trickster who wasn’t overly big himself.”

“Todski won five for us, and he looked like he was going to go through the grades. But he had a tendon injury and we tried to get him back going, but we got one race out of him after that and that was after a year. He was a really nice one, the best one I think we have bred,” said Petrina.

Other horses over the years remain fondling in Petrina’s memory.

“She’s not one that we bred, but we raced C A Penny. She was by Pay Me Christan out of a breed that Bob McArdle had a lot to do with.”

C A Penny proved to be a wonderful racehorse, competing at the highest level against some of the big names of her season.

C A Penny won 8 races, including the Listed Southern Mares Classic, and placed second in the Group Two Premier Mares Championship.

“She finished fourth in the Group One New Zealand Breeders Stakes, behind The Orange Agent, Picadilly Princess and Better B Amazed.”

“I think they went about 3.08 that night for the 2600m mobile, they were just flying. I don’t think they’ve gone as quick again either.”

“That was such a huge thrill running close up behind mares like that.”

“We have bred from her and she’s given us a lot of fillies. They’ve all got ‘Penny’ names.”

To date C A Penny has left a winner in Ha’penny, who won four and had ten placings, before recently being retired.

They also have Ten A Penny, a Sweet Lou four-year-old mare in the team who is yet to race.

Alongside the hands on harness racing involvement, Petrina herself is former President of the Marlborough Harness Racing Club. And she and Allan are members of the club.

“I’m still involved with the property itself, it’s in a charitable trust and I do a bit of work with that side of things. It’s got more a business look across the whole property as well, so we aren’t just relying on racing. It has become financially sustainable which is good.”

So what drives the couple to keep breeding, where does that passion to keep going come from and fuels the fire to keep breeding, training and travelling with their horses.

“I’d love to breed a horse like C A Penny and win a Listed or Group race as a breeder, that’s the ultimate.”

“We don’t sell any that we breed, we breed them to race ourselves. Although I do try and convince Allan to sell the odd colt, but he doesn’t want to. We get so many fillies, he doesn’t want to let the boys go,” Petrina laughed.

“But I think because we are breeding for ourselves, if we are able to achieve something at that higher end and win a big race would be amazing.”

But just being a breeder comes with it’s own rewards, and that’s not always about winning.

“You feel like you’ve got a win when firstly you’re left with a foal that’s correct, and then gets through the various steps, like breaking in and qualifying.”

“Just seeing a horse that started off with an idea, choosing the mare and the stallion, and achieves to the best point it can get to like a regional Cup or something, that’s great.”

But for Petrina, it’s about the community of the sport as well.

“When you win a race and all these texts come in from all over the place, people you race with, people you play golf with, and all sorts of people from the industry.“

“Everyone is happy for you, genuinely happy for your success, and that makes it so special to be a part of.”