HRNZ Media Bites, September 24

HRNZ MEDIA BITES, SEPTEMBER 24

• This Friday night we’ll no doubt see a great race at Addington in the Avon City Ford (New Brighton) Cup. Here are the names: Auckland Reactor,Franco Emirate (Ur), Gold Ace, Highview Tommy, Jarcullembra, Mach Banner, Mah Sish, Major Mark, Mister Presley, Motu Speedy Star, Ohoka Texas, Pure Power, Sleepy Tripp (Ur), Sushi Sushi, Zenola Seelster. Winner gets to walk straight into the Christchurch Casino NZ Trotting Cup. There are some dual nominators in a 4-Win & Faster Hcp also.
• Gold Ace turned in a sparkling workout at Rangiora on Sunday. He came from second-last at the mile peg to down Mach Banner who led from the mid stages. Privately timed Gold Ace put up numbers of 3.00.8, 1.57.0, 54.7 and 27.1. A perfect run heading into this week. Worth noting the likes of Mach Banner and Franco Emirate ran sub-2.54 2400m in the Vase at Addington two weeks ago.
• Cran Dalgety has had a remarkable start to the racing season. He’s already racked up 17 wins from just 35 starts. He’s well on the way to another century. I ran some numbers this morning also and Dalgety has huge stocks to work with. I counted 37 three-year-olds in work on the HRNZ database. Currently there are no two-year-olds listed so the original figure could sore by the end of the calendar year. Cran is only five wins off 800 lifetime training wins in NZ.
• The NRM Sires Stakes kicks off this week too with the initial heats being run in Cambridge and Addington. Always a great series the early three-year-olds generally put on a great show. 13 have nominated for Addington’s heat with Mark Purdon supplying four of them. Unfortunately just five have committed to a run at Cambridge.
• Caribbean Blaster has been nominated to race at Tabcorp Park, Melton, this Friday night in The Gammalite. He’ll butt heads with the likes of Melpark Major and Jaccka Clive. Will be interesting to see how he fronts up against the Free-For-Allers and what impact there may be on next week’s NZ Cup rankings.
• Fears of horse shortages have been allayed somewhat with the 195 individual horses being nominated for Banks Peninsula on Sunday. While race fields have struggled a little for numbers to this point with some of the bigger stables opening up their arsenals things are clearly about to change on that front. The spring influx of grass track meetings around the country too will nudge up the average fields sizes.
• Change in conditions to NZ Trotting FFA – since it’s move from the traditional Friday the NZ Trotting FFA at Addington during Cup Week has been a mixed bag. The club has looked at ways to make the race better for all concerned and this year’s running will be on Cup Day (same as recent years) and be run over the sprint distance of 1950m. The race will once again be sponsored by Seelite Windows & Doors.