The countdown to June’s IRT Harness Jewels is officially on.
On Saturday at Addington’s Easter Cup meeting the Harness Jewels-leading yellow silks will be seen for the first time. John Dunn will partner unbeaten trotter Highgrove and Natalie Rasmussen, the champion mare Amazing Dream.
Highgrove will race in the Group Three Majestic Son New Zealand 2YO Trotting Stakes having won both his starts so far. He leads the 2YO Ruby leaderboard with $5600 in stake-money.
Amazing Dream will be up against some familiar foes and stable-mates Spankem and Self Assured in the Group 1 Easter Cup.
With seven wins and more than $270,000 in stakes this season she is a shoo-in to top the 4YO Diamond all the way to the Harness Jewels at Cambridge at Queen’s Birthday weekend.
Sticking with the traditional format there will be nine races on June 6 all raced over a mile with the Diamond for fillies, Emerald for the colts, geldings and/or entires, and the Ruby series for the trotters.
The other current leaders are pacers Mr Kaplan (2YO Diamond), Montana DJ (2YO Emerald), Bettor Twist (3YO Diamond), Krug (3YO Emerald) and Copy That (4YO Emerald) and trotters Wanna Play With Me (3YO Ruby) and Bolt For Brilliance (4YO Ruby), though none of them will be action over the weekend.
The Harness Jewels leaderboard will be constantly updated on the HRNZ website in the lead-up to the big day, with the top 12 money earners in each division making the Harness Jewels field.
To see the leaderboard click here
