Aurora Stud was established in the Deep South - the Kentucky of New Zealand - in 1974. Our foundation stallion was Dellmount Phaeton, bought from Brian and Noelene Ross as a weanling. He left many partbreds who excelled in many fields, but only one purebred mare,
Aurora Talaria.
Talaria had a career under saddle, competing at horse trials and pony club competitions, and hunting, before we bought her back as an 18-year-old. With Talaria, and her future progeny, we are endeavouring to get a link to Phaeton, who died in 1997.
Talaria's dam, Odette, was bought from Ernie and Barbara Wilson, then at Mimihau. Odette was in foal to Touch of Magic, and produced a grey filly, Aurora Corina, who we sold on. Odette then had a grey colt by Phaeton, Aurora El Cid, now deceased, then Talaria.
One of Phaeton's best performing sons was Aurora Bullion, an anglo-arab who was an excellent showjumper, competing at C grade until an injury forced his retirement at the age of 10. He also won the Station Hack challenge at Riverton, a one-mile race run over two days at the Easter meeting. He is still going strong, and features on Horsetalk and in Horse and Pony magazine as a model horse whenever needed. He is in his 31st year.
Phaeton was also used by coloured sport horse breeders Rainbow Stud, and several of his "Rainbow" progeny have proven themselves as jumpers.
In the past several years we have also bred several thoroughbreds to race, and several appaloosas.
Khali Malek (Naaddel x Ezrina) came to us in December 2001. He is a good natured stallion and left many good horses for Helen Chambers, of Rosewood Farm, in Canterbury. He left no foals at Aurora and was sold on.
Dellmount Sudani arrived at the age of 27. His last two foals were bred at Aurora, with Aurora Sudaar sold on as a stud prospect.
The pure Crabbet stallion Silver Omen arrived from Australia in May 2006. There are two crops of Omen foals on the ground in New Zealand thus far, and we are very pleased with his progeny.
Some of the horses bred from Aurora stock:
Sierra Triple Gem (Aurora Sheikh Nevada [Dellmount Phaeton x Free Flutter (TB)] x Mystery Gal (TB)), a 14.2hh Anglo Arab mare owned by Jacqui Botman, is a successful jumper. Aurora Sheikh Nevada's dam Free Flutter raced, but was not fast enough. We sold her to a person at Center Bush, who wanted her for a riding hack. Before he picked her up she managed to get herself served by Phaeton, but the buyer still wanted her and off she went. The next we heard was that Sharon Leckie had bought her with her colt foal at foot, this foal being Nevada. Sharon managed to get him registered and used him for several years. She then sold him to some people who gelded him as an older horse. The last owner he had was Andy Gillespie in Te Anau, who used him as a trekking horse. The sad part of the story was that he was kicked by one of the SB trekking horses and had his shoulder broken so had to be euthanised.
Tell us your story if you have a descendent of an Aurora horse.
