Friday’s G3 feature trot field have a mountain to climb

New Zealand’s climate might be cooling in temperature with Autumn well and truly in effect, but the harness racing action is heating up thanks partly to feature racing at both Alexandra Park and Addington Raceway this Friday night (17 March).

The $30,000 Group Three Lamb and Hayward Classic serves as the main event on the 10-race programme at Addington, with a small but select field of seven of the country’s leading open-class trotters contesting the feature trot, headlined by the freakish Muscle Mountain (Muscle Hill).

The Open Class trotting ranks have drastically changed in complexion in the last couple of weeks with the shock retirement of two-time New Zealand Harness Horse of the Year, Sundees Son (Majestic Son).

Add to that the likes of Bolt For Brilliance (Muscle Hill) who is out recuperating from a fractured fetlock, Majestic Man (Majestic Son) who is on a 28 day stand down after a bleed in Victoria and the retirement also of the old war horse, Temporale (Monarchy), the depth in the trotting ranks has become much thinner than it has been for some time.

This has virtually left Muscle Mountain without peer when it comes to Friday night’s assignment and despite copping a 30m handicap on his race night rivals, the six-year-old son of Muscle Hill has opened up a $1.35 favourite to add the G3 to his impressive and ever-growing resume.

“He seems well and has come through his New Zealand record run without any issues,” said his regular pilot, Ben Hope.

“He has had a bit of an easy time of things since we knew that tomorrow night’s race was about a month in between runs. His work has been great, and he looks ready to go another big race and we haven’t seen anything to say he won’t be very hard to beat again,” he said.

The Greg and Nina Hope trained superstar is joined in tomorrow nights G3 feature by two stable runners in the ever-consistent Midnight Dash (Muscle Hill) and progressive five-year-old son of Love You, Eurokash.

“Midnight Dash’s first up run was great, and we are really happy with him. The 20m handicap might makes things tough giving some of those nice trotters a head start, but you would have to say he would be a top 4 chance based off how he has performed over the last 12 months,” said Hope.

“Eurokash has been working super and we have always had a nice opinion of him from an early age. he probably had a bit of a dry spell there for a while but this year he has barely gone a bad race, he might have had one bad run, but apart from that we think he has been racing really well.

“He’s probably a top 4 chance as well, and if all things went favourably I think the three stable runners are a chance of filling the first four tomorrow night, but Muscle Mountain is likely to be too good for the stablemates,” he said.

Midnight Dash will be handled by his regular reinsman in Ricky May with Eurokash to be driven by the country’s leading reinsman, Blair Orange.

The Hope trio will face some competition from the likes of last year’s emerging Open Class star in Aardiebythehill (Muscle Hill) who was a solid second at the Rangiora trials last week in preparation for tomorrow night’s resumption.

The Robert and Jenna Dunn trained five-year-old has not raced since he was a lackluster fourth in the Greenlane Cup at Alexandra Park on New Years Eve, but at his best has shown himself to be capable in the grade, evidenced by his two G3 placings last term.

Rounding out the field is a trio of talented trotting mares with the in-form Time Up The Hill (Muscle Hill) the best credentialed to give the odds-on favourite something to think about. The Michael Ward trained blue blood was a gallant second behind Muscle Mountain in the G1 NZ Trotting FFA back in December and was a solid third in the Summer Cup last month.

Tomorrow night’s G3 Lamb & Hayward Classic serves as a crucial lead in race to the $100,000 G1 Fred Shaw Memorial a fortnight later at the same venue. With the promise of Mataderos, Five Wise Men and even Nazareth to bolster the ranks, it promises to be a spectacle early in the 2023 racing season that is not to be missed.

Another dominant performance from Muscle Mountain tomorrow night however and the TAB might be forced to open a market for the runners without him in it. He currently sits at $1.45 on the TAB Futures market.

For complete Addington fields, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink