Friday’s Invercargill – Auckland double header will highlight harness racing action around the country this week.
The $100,000 Group 1 Ascot Park Hotel Invercargill Cup and the Group 3 Brendan Franks Farrier David Moss Stakes headline a huge day at Ascot Park before Alexandra Park hosts its first ever $1m Golden Gait meeting. There will be 10 $100,000 races.
Invercargill’s meeting will start at 2.55, with Alexandra Park underway at 5.16pm.
Today’s Addington meeting to kick start huge week
The week starts today with a nine race Tuesday meeting at Addington, starting at 4 pm.
One major talking point will be the tight battle for the junior drivers’ premiership.
Just two wins separates Sam Thornley (60 wins), Carter Dalgety (58) and Wilson House (58) and all three will be driving at today’s meeting.
Thornley has just returned from across the Tasman where he won the Australasian Young Drivers’ Championship over the weekend. While he’s been away Dalgety has had six wins, and House four.
Dalgety will have four drives today with Thornley and House having three each.
All three will feature in just two races – Race 5 – the Carrfields – For Premium Agricultural Services Mobile Pace at 5.48pm and Race 7 – the Elmwood Trading Co – Voted NZ’s Best Local Mobile Pace (6.42pm)
Thursday will see racing at Cambridge, with the week finishing up at Ashburton on Sunday.
Equal opportunity for all at Alexandra Park this Friday
By Michael Guerin
New Zealand’s newest $1m race meeting could also be the most equal opportunity meeting in New Zealand racing history.
The Golden Gait brings together a wide array of Alexandra Park regulars at Auckland headquarters on Friday night, with those involved having to have had a certain number of starts there this season to be eligible: six for three-year-olds and older, four starts for juveniles.
The meeting has been embraced by trainers and brings together everything from a Taylor Mile/Messenger double winner in Mach Shard to a rating 35 pacing mare like Clouding Over, who has won once in her 39 start career.
Add in recent The Velocity winner Better Knuckle Up and Oaks and Queen Of Hearts heroine Duchess Megxit in the three-year-old race and the night hosts both the stars and unknown of the sport.
And here is the cool, equal opportunity part: they are all running for the same money.
Every one of the 10 races is worth the same amount, similar to the old Jewels concept but this time not only with the elite age group performers but the battlers who get their one shot at a $100,000 chance probably in their life.
So while the three-year-old race is the undoubted the glamour event of the night and the higher grade aged pace brings together Sooner The Better, Jolimont and Mach Shard, it will be the two lower-grade aged races, one each for trotters and pacers, where the fairytales are made.
Race 2, the Golden Gait Aged R35-46 Mobile Pace (5.58pm) and Race 10, the Aged R38-47 Mobile Trot (9.53pm) bring together the “field fillers” who make Alexandra Park happen every Friday night, some of then even competing in amateur driver races along the way.
Some would question the worth of $100,000 races for those horses whose connections would be thrilled to race for $50,000 or even $30,000?
But the way they boosted fields week in, week out at Alexandra Park meant more turnover and even some meetings being saved.
They deserve their over-inflated shot at the title, the irony being that in both races the combined market value of the horses involved probably wouldn’t add up to the total $100,000 stakes.
But that is if you could buy them, which in many cases you couldn’t.
They are somebody’s sweetheart, somebody’s family pet. And this Friday night two of them are going to become somebody’s $100,000 race winner.
And they will be undoubtedly the two most celebrated races of this new harness racing feature night.
To see Auckland’s fields click here
First few strides could decide Friday’s Group 1 Invercargill Cup
By Jonny Turner
The few seconds after the ping of the standing start tapes could prove to be a vital factor in deciding the Group 1 Ascot Park Hotel Invercargill Cup on Friday.
Southland’s biggest harness race is a clash of rising stars with the very progressive types like Mo’unga, Rakero Rocket and Pinseeker taking on Republican Party who is one of few seasoned open class veterans in the feature event.
Rakero Rocket comes south after a career defining victory, beating Merlin and Don’t Stop Dreaming in the recent Group 1 The Christian Cullen at Addington.
Drawing the front line looks at barrier 5 looks a clear advantage for the Tom Bamford trained pacer, who comes south after making an excellent beginning to win his latest standing start, in the Timaru Cup.
But before that, the talented four-year-old made mistakes in his two prior stands in the Aged Sales Series Classic at Kaikoura and in the Oamaru Cup.
To make his quest for back-to-back Group One wins easier and to assert himself as an open class star, Rakero Rocket’s camp and fans will want to see him make the kind of beginning he made in his Timaru victory.
And if he can, the pacer could be dangerously positioned close to the speed, as he was in The Christian Cullen.
Mo’unga fans are in the same spot heading into Invercargill’s big day.
The Regan Todd trained pacer made good beginnings in every start of his spring campaign before getting things wrong early in his latest stand outing in the New Zealand Cup.
Starting alongside just one other rival from the 10m mark in Republican Party, there look few excuses for Mo’unga not to be able to step away cleanly at Ascot Park.
And if the pacer can produce one of his best beginnings, as he did in the Kaikoura Cup, he could make up his 10m handicap very quickly and be within striking distance early in Friday’s feature.
Charlie Brown brings one of the best recent standing start records to Invercargill having stepped away cleanly in each of his spring outings.
To further boost his claims, the Robert and Jenna Dunn trained pacer comes into Ascot Park’s Group 1 on the back of his slashing second in the Group One The Christian Cullen behind Rakero Rocket.
The only factor against Charlie Brown looks to be his precarious draw in barrier 9, where he will start directly behind the rank outsider of the Invercargill Cup in Mikey Maguire.
But with the four-year-old being the only horse on the second line, there is good hope that driver John Dunn can negotiate a decent early passage forward.
To see Invercargill’s fields click here
