News Briefs : September 3

Akuta being the favourite at Addington, a new race at Alexandra Park and a new record at The Big M all feature in this week's News Briefs.

Akuta heavily favoured in New Brighton Cup

Akuta has been installed as a $1.90 favourite for Friday's Avon City Ford New Brighton Cup at Addington on Friday night. The Mark and Nathan Purdon-trained star is having his third race back after a long lay-off and is fresh off a win at Alexandra Park last month. The winner of the race gains automatic entry to the IRT New Zealand Trotting Cup at Addington Raceway on Tuesday, September 11. The field also includes the likes of Alta Meteor, We Walk By Faith and Franco Marek. After his impressive win fresh up Muscle Mountain is a $2.10 favourite to win Friday's ITM Ordeal Cup. The winner of the race automatically qualifies for the Renwick Farms Dominion Trot. Both Friday's races are Group 3s.

Leap To Fame back to trials soon

Champion pacer Leap To Fame is ahead of schedule and will launch his campaign aimed at the IRT NZ Trotting Cup at Addington Raceway within the next month. Trainer-driver Grant Dixon said the richest pacer in Australasian history was on target to trial in the third week of September. The first stages of his campaign are aimed at being primed for the one traditional Aussie “major” to elude him, the $250,000 Group1 Victoria Cup, at Melton on October 18. This will be Leap To Fame’s third trip to chase the Victoria Cup. He ran a close third as favourite to Act Now and Catch A Wave in 2023, then was scratched due to illness just days before last year’s race won by Swayzee. Then all the focus will be on Addington. “The flight we’re looking at gets him to Auckland more than a week before the Cup and then he can get down to Christchurch in time for the Cup Trial if we think it’s what he needs," says Dixon.

New race at AP

An extra trot has been added to Alexandra Park's meeting on Friday, September 12. It will be a $17,000 Free For All over 1700 metres. There will be a Preferential Barrier Draw based on rating then winning stakes using the grid system.

Monkey King returns home

Two-time New Zealand Cup winner Monkey King has returned home to Dancingonmoonlight Farm in North Canterbury. The now 22-year-old, who won back-to-back Cups in 2009 and 2010, has been at Bella Partington's place for the last few years where the pair have been a champion combo in the show ring. Now he's back at the upscale Dancingonmoonlight along with fellow champions Bailey's Dream and Christian Cullen. Between them the trio won 78 races and just under $6m in stakes.

Fourth TAB racing Club starter

Off the Canvas is to become the fourth TAB Racing Club runner to hit the race track. The Nathan Williamson-trained pacer will front up in Friday's Probuild ITM 2YO Mobile Pace at Addington in a quality field that includes Seaside Brucie and Stumblin In. Off the Canvas follows Eun Sogno, a winner on debut for the Dalgetys, No More Dreaming and Another Collect as the TAB Racing Club horses to get to the races. No More Dreaming, the sales topper at the 2024 National Yearling Sales, finished seventh at Alexandra Park on August 22, while Another Collect was fifth in his New Zealand debut last Friday.

Tenzing Bromac reaches new peak

North America seems to be appealing to former Kiwi Tenzing Bromac. The son of Bettor's Delight won one of two starts in this country for Ken Barron before heading across the Tasman. Now the eight-year-old is in the USA and over the weekend paced a personal best 1:52.4 to win in Maine. It was the fastest mile paced in the state so far this year and equalled the third fastest mile ever recorded at the Windsor Fair.

History-making treble at The Big M

In what seems a remarkable statistic, Lauren Tritton has become the first female driver ever to win three races at the same meeting at the famous Meadowlands track in New Jersey. “That’s pretty cool,” said Tritton post race before saying what many were surely thinking.
“It’s actually mind-blowing that a woman, in all of those years, hasn’t done that. I’m pretty proud of myself, to be honest.”
The Big M has been in operation since the 1970s. All three wins came from horses trained by her husband Shane. They moved to the USA from Australia in 2020. Lauren Tritton's personal best was seven wins in the one night in Newcastle before their move to North America.  

Box Seat back next week

Harness racing's weekly show on Trackside is back next week, just as the racing action hots up. Hosted by Matt Cross, Greg O'Connor and Brittany Graham, the Box Seat returns at 8pm next Tuesday. It will also be available on hrnz.co.nz

Club News : Methven

Methven will host the first grass track meeting of the spring on Sunday. Gates open at 10am with the first race at 11.30.
To see the fields click here