Strap yourself in.
The unprecedented Aussie raid on NZ’s biggest carnival hits top gear at tomorrow’s iconic NZ Cup meeting at Addington.
And, excitingly, Harness Racing Victoria has sealed a deal with Trackside NZ to show tomorrow’s meeting at thetrots.com.au.
Nine Aussie horses will step out tomorrow as part of the 15-strong raid across Addington’s three biggest meetings of the year. The others are Friday’s Show Day and Friday week’s “Age Group” finals night.
Four of them are Victorian, including classy trotters Gotfeelingsyouknow and Rockinwithattitude in tomorrow’s $NZ400,000 Group 1 Dominion Trot.
Gotfeelingsyouknow, who ran second to Gus in the Brisbane Inter Dominion final on July 18, finally made it across the ditch yesterday – a week after his first scheduled flight was aborted.
While the pair will be very competitive at their best, it’s hard to see how they can beat Queensland star and defending champion Gus in the form he showed winning first-up at Albion Park two weeks ago.
Throw in the fact Gus loves the standing-start, 3200m and wide expanses of Addington’s superb 1200m track.
Although there are no Victorians in the $NZ800,000 NZ Cup, it will be a shock if one of the four Aussies, most notably Leap To Fame, Kingman or Swayzee, don’t make it four Aussie-trained Cup winners in a row.
That’s remarkable when you consider only one (Arden Rooney in 2015) was able to win in the 36 years between My Lightning Blue (1987) and Swayzee’s first win in 2023.
Of course, Swayzee returned to successfully defend his crown in 2024 and Kingman upset Leap To Fame to win last year.
And consider this … the past seven NZ Cup winners have been wholly Australian owned. The others were Copy That in 2021 and ’22, Self Assured in 2020 and Cruz Bromac in 2019.
The other Aussie runners tomorrow are classy NSW filly Ripples in the Group 1 Nevele R final (race eight) and The Queens Gambit in the last of 13 races.
Then we go to Friday, where we could see the rematch of Leap To Fame and Captains Mistress in the Group 1 NZ Pacing free-for-all. The scoreline is 1-1 after Captains Mistress upstaged Leap To Fame in that epic Brisbane Inter Dominion final.
“There’s an 80 per cent chance we’ll be there,” Leap To Fame’s trainer-driver Grant Dixon said.
Captains Mistress is a lock.
As he did last year when he won both Group 1 races, Gus will also back-up in the Group 1 NZ Trotting free-for-all.
The other Victorians in action over the next three meetings are Courtney Slater’s emerging three-year-old pacer Luvtobeuptome and Brent Lilley’s three-year-old trotting star Kyvalley Ray, who returns to the land of all his biggest wins.
Their key targets are Friday week’s derbies of their gait.
Kyvalley Ray could be joined in the Trotting Derby by Queensland filly Raffie Jay, who ran a terrific fourth in last Friday’s NZ Trotting Oaks and will certainly benefit from the experience.
The question is whether Kyvalley Ray can turn around his indifferent form and manners so far this campaign in Victoria.
Luvetobeuptome and NSW star Palladium will have to overcome the immensely exciting Kiwi pacer Jumal to win the Pacing Derby.
On the same night star NSW filly Ark Sea is expected to tackle the Group 1 NZ Pacing Oaks.
That’s the plan if she doesn’t land a slot in the $1.5 million TAB Eureka over the next few days.
Ripples and potentially The Queens Gambit will also head to the Oaks if they please owner Mick Harvey tomorrow.
For those tuning in, the brightest Kiwi stars to watch through the three big meetings include: Marketplace and The Lazarus Effect (NZ Cup), Jumal (NZ Pacing Derby) and Duchess Maria (NZ Trotting Oaks).
