Marketplace heading home after brave Rising Sun effort

By Michael Guerin

Canterbury trainer Regan Todd didn’t go all the way to Brisbane to have to watch his stable star Marketplace beaten by a former Kiwi rival.

But that is exactly what happened in the A$350,000 Rising Sun at Albion Park on Saturday night and Todd says the ultimate dividend of that campaign may still be a year away.

Marketplace was New Zealand’s best three-year-old last season but he had to settle for a brave but well beaten second in the Rising Sun, a mixed three and four-year-old pacing race on the opening night of Brisbane’s truncated Inter Dominion carnival.

He worked mid-race and secured the one-one but was never going to catch former Kiwi mare Captains Mistress, who led and broke the track record when racing clear.

Captain Mistress was a very good three-year-old filly here last season but has improved about five or maybe even 10 lengths since joining the Jason Grimson stable and now finds herself second favourite for the Inter Dominion Pacing Final on July 18, which she now has a golden ticket to.

“Once we drew outside her and she got on the marker pegs we were probably never going to beat her and that was probably the case six weeks ago before we decided to come over,” admits Todd.

“But he was very brave and it was a great race so he can head home now and have a break and be set for the New Zealand Cup.”

Todd hopes Marketplace’s Australian campaign will mentally toughen him up for next season when Australasia’s best pacer Leap To Fame will be retired and the crown of the region’s best pacer may lay vacant.

With the likes of Swayzee also at the end of his career and New Zealand Cup winner Kingman enigmatic at best, pacers like Marketplace and his arch-rival Got The Chocolates could finally fly the New Zealand harness racing with pride again in races like the Miracle Mile or Interdoms after a very lean last five years.

“I think both he [Marketplace] and I have learned things that will help us campaign over here in the next few years,” says Todd.

Fellow Canterbury rep Dash Dosh was a slightly luckless second in the A$150,000 Great Square on Saturday night but suggested she is an open class trotting mare in the making so the Kiwis are least paid their way.

There are no Kiwi reps in the Inter Dominions this season but two Queenslanders who starred at Cambridge in April, the champ Leap To Fame and trotter Gus, look the clear top picks in their respective finals after their opening night heat wins.

What could make things interesting in the pacing ranks and at create at least some chatter is if Captains Mistress draws in front of Leap To Fame in the A$1 million final and the great one has to sit parked outside her.