By Jonny Turner
Success on and off the track continued for Southland breeder-owner Megan Reidie when Macandrew Markup completed back-to-back wins at Winton on Sunday.
The pacer had run into all sorts of bad luck before breaking through at Wyndham a week prior.
Macandrew Markup then showed his fortunes had completely turned around when scoring again in the Winton’s Middle Pub Mobile Pace for Reidie’s partner, trainer Jeremy Douglas, with his son Hayden in the sulky.
“He had been knocked over a couple of times and had plenty of bad luck but now he’s switched on to things and been able to get the job done quite nicely,” Reidie said.
Like many of the pacers Reidie has raced, Macandrew Markup’s ownership is a family affair.
“We have got the same base group that has raced most of our horses – my dad, my two brothers and I.”
“But in this syndicate, we have also got my uncle and my dad’s best mate, too.”
Megan, Mark, Andrew and Jamie Reidie also race open-class pacer Macandrew Aviator alongside the Kiwi Connection Syndicate.
The horse made a strong start to his New Zealand Cup campaign before disappearing off the scene after suffering a hoof injury in the Hannon Memorial.
Macandrew Aviator is close to putting the incident behind him and will be on his way back to Canterbury soon.
“He is fully sound, the hoof just needs to grow out a little bit more,” Reidie said.
“He will head back up the road soon, but we want to make doubly sure he is right before he goes so Jeremy, Brendon Bell and I are keeping a close eye on him.”
Through her interest in breeding and racing, plus her day job as a veterinarian, Reidie is involved in a huge number of aspects of the harness racing industry.
One of them is through her role as president Southland branch of the Standardbred Breeders Association.
The group recently hosted an evening in Invercargill to promote breeding, with Harness Racing New Zealand CEO Brad Steele speaking.
“It was a really good evening, the idea came from a couple of our committee members who had heard that bookings to stallions were a bit slow,” Reidie said.
“So we needed to do a bit of a promotion.”
“We had some great prizes including some stallion services donated which was awesome.”
“We have had heaps of positive comments after the night.”
Reidie is literally hands-on in the breeding industry, with her vet work including caring for newborn foals and getting mares in foal.
Despite record rainfall in Southland this spring, Reidie reports that so far she has encountered few issues with foalings and good success rates with mares getting in foal.
