Got The Chocolates sensational in NZ Messenger win

By Michael Guerin

Got The Chocolates has gone to a new level.

How high that level is, we may have to wait until November, or even later, to find out.

But the way he thrashed two exceptional pacers in The Lazarus Effect and Swayzee in the $100,000 Dawson Harford Messenger at Alexandra Park on Friday night, the four-year-old looks every inch a future Cups winner.

The big son of Art Major sat three back on the markers in a strung out field as Swayzee set a hot pace but when driver John Dunn asked him to move at the 600m mark GTC ran past Swayzee like the Aussie was wearing gumboots.

Got The Chocolates raced clear for one of the most impressive wins in the history of a race that consistently produces future Cup winners.

The TAB sure thought so as he is now the $3 second favourite for the New Zealand Cup, only the great Leap To Fame at $2 ahead of him.

Marketplace, who was an easy but a far less dramatic winner at Addington earlier, is the $6 third favourite, his best work for 2026 still to come.

But on this wet Friday night in May, and maybe for the two Friday nights before that, Got The Chocolates has looked the best pacer in New Zealand. 

While last season his lack of gate speed meant he has to be tough, somewhere over the summer he found the speed of a very, very good pacer. Maybe even a great one.

Consider what he did to Swayzee over 2700m on Friday to what others couldn’t do over a similar trip in the Hunter Cup less than three months ago.

Sure, Swayzee probably isn’t racing as well as he was but that was one of the most destructive defeats of the two-time NZ Cup winner when he had led and got his own way.

Got The Chocolates looks to have gone past the New Zealand regulars of recent seasons in terms of strength and now surprisingly speed.

Of course all of this lives in the shadow of Leap To Fame but it is six months until the New Zealand Cup and there is no guarantee Larry will even be there.

And if he is, then it won’t be for the next NZ Cup, or Auckland Cup, or the  Miracle Mile.

So Got The Chocolates, Marketplace and The Lazarus Effect are arriving at the right time.

Young, bold and fast, with perhaps Jumal as back up in a year or 18 months.

Lots has been said about the Australian dominance of Swayzee, Leap To Fame and Kingman in the last three years and deservedly so, they have travelled and conquered and maybe awoken a beast in New Zealand pacing by teaching us we need to race harder and tougher.

But that dominance looks set to end in 2027. 

Or maybe even sooner.