Day: 8 November 2024

By Adam Hamilton  Champion pacer Leap To Fame’s roller coaster IRT New Zealand Trotting Cup raid is over. Trainer-driver Grant Dixon ordered one final precautionary blood test before Sunday’s planned flight from Sydney to Auckland and the news was bad. “It’s over,” Leap To Fame’s owner Kevin Seymour said, “just when we thought things were back on track, his blood is out again. It seems every time we work him hard, it flares something up. “It’s devastating. We’ve planned this trip for so long, but the horse has and always…

BREAKING NEWS  Commanding favourite Leap To Fame is out of Tuesday’s $1m IRT New Zealand Trotting Cup at Addington Raceway. The champion Australian pacer was due to arrive in Christchurch on Sunday and was at short odds to win the country’s biggest race in four days time.  But after returning unsatisfactory blood tests he has now been scratched from the Cup and will not make the trip. We will continue to provide updates as they become available.  

The NZ Sires’ Stakes Board wishes everyone racing over IRT NZ Trotting Cup Week all the very best of good luck. Because as quick as Chase A Dream’s quarter last year Cup week is here and there is plenty to get excited  about. To find out more about the Sires’ Stakes Cup Week class of 2024 click here  Tuesday and Friday,  Addington’s  two biggest days of the year, will see such feature races as  :   – Woodlands Stud NZ 2YO C and G Final– Nevele R 3YO Fillies Final– Dunstan Horsefeeds…

By Jonny Turner   The little brother of a New Zealand Cup great scored a timely win as the lead-up to the $1m feature builds to a fever pitch.  Just one day short of eight years since Lazarus delivered his first devastating New Zealand Cup victory, Sinai Sermon delivered a strong front-running win at Oamaru in the Brad Williamson Racing Stables Mobile Pace.  The younger of the two brothers is trained by David Mitchell who races the four-year-old with Donna Williamson and Gavin Chin. Chin is co-breeder of the two-time…

The Bob Butt trained and driven High Step has sealed her place in the $30,000 Seddon Shields Trotting Championship Series Final at Addington Raceway in March next year. The Father Patrick three-year-old qualified for the final after winning the opening heat of the Bob Rochford series, the Lobster Inn/Kaikoura Night ‘n Day Handicap Trot, at Kaikoura on Monday. She was three back the fence mid race before getting into the running line and then peeling three wide around the home turn. She charged to the line to win by a…