The big races just keep on coming at Addington

By Michael Guerin

Some of the biggest stars of Cup week have been set huge tasks at Friday’s mammoth Addington meeting.

While many of us are still recovering from the mega week in Christchurch this Friday’s meeting rivals almost anything we saw last week for overall depth in the age group races, with the obvious exception of the open class trotters being missing this time.

IRT New Zealand Cup winner Kingman returns in the $125,000 Christian Cullen Classic and had drawn the outside of the front line over 2600m mobile.

Trainer Luke McCarthy will return from New South Wales to drive him and after his performance last Tuesday he will still start a hot favourite in a field that contains open class regulars Better Knuckle Up, Chase A Dream and We Walk By Faith and newcomer The Lazarus Effect.

The $300,000 Garrards NZ Pacing Derby has drawn most of our leading three-year-olds with the exception of Queensland Derby winner Rubira, who has returned north with most of his Mark and Nathan Purdon-trained stablemates after the team raced below their best last week.

“There was obviously something wrong with a lot of them so we will get them home, get them healthy and set them for Alexandra Park next month,” said Mark Purdon.

Derby favourite Got The Chocolates gets barrier 4, inside Marketplace but the latter will probably still beat him for gate speed and then the question will be whether Got The Chocolates has earned so much respect he gets waved on to the lead.

The Pacing Oaks sees last week’s Nevele R winner Celestial Sea draw the second line again in a stacked field with other big names Captains Mistress (1), Duchess Of Kent (4) and Arafura (5) all drawn well on the front line.

Meant To Be has opened the $2.15 for the Garrards NZ Trotting Derby from his unruly draw with Tracy The Jet electing to miss the race and now being the $1.25 pop to win the $140,000 Woodlands Stud NZ Trotting Oaks.

The five Group 1s will be run in consecutive races and with the meeting also including a Group 2 and two Group 3s it almost feels like a return to the Cup weeks of yesteryear when Cup week used to extend to the following weekend.

To see Friday's fields click here