Dominion defence on track for Sundees Son

The news is all bad for New Zealand’s open class trotters following Sundees Son’s history-making hat-trick in the Ordeal Trotting Cup at Addington last week.

The Robert and Jenna Dunn trained star cruised home to win the Group 3 feature and further cement his favouritism ahead of his Dominion defence in his second run of the spring.

Owner Colin Hair revealed after the victory that returning to the New Zealand Cup carnival was one of the star trotter’s main priorities this season after the win.

“John and I sit down and have a bit of a chat and determine what we want to aim for,” Hair told Harness Racing Unhinged’s Nigel Armstrong.

“Basically, the plan for this year is the same as it was last year and just aim towards the Dominion.”

Hair, who races Sundees Son with wife Nancy, has effectively ruled out an Australian campaign this season unless there was a major change to New Zealand’s border protocols.

With that seeming unlikely right now, the Horse Of The Year favourite is likely to cause plenty of headaches for the camps of his rival open class trotters in New Zealand.

“The thing about travelling is – not with COVID,” Hair said.

“If we couldn’t travel, but more to the point if John couldn’t travel and Craig (Edmonds) couldn’t, I wouldn’t travel him.”

“There is no way I am going to send him going to send him across to Sydney or Melbourne without John or Craig there.”

Hair also revealed that Sundees Son’s history making hat-trick in the Ordeal Trotting Cup almost didn’t happen.

The race wasn’t initially among the horse’s plans but his owners were keen to see if their star could do what no other trotter has done before.

“This race wasn’t initially wasn’t on his plan for the year.”

“He was going to start in the Canterbury Park (Trotting) Cup which is at the end of the month – early October.”

“But Nancy and I said to John we would quite like to have another go (at the Ordeal Trotting Cup) on the basis that he could be a three-time winner of it.”

The Dunn camp subsequently lined the trotter up and history was made.

Majestic Lavros followed Sundees Son across the line in the Ordeal Trotting Cup.

The Mark Jones trained trotter looks extremely hard to beat in the feature trot at the Hannon Memorial meeting on Sunday.