Southern Snippets

Murray Brown and Beaudiene Bad Babe are each to be honoured at the Invercargill Cup meeting in December.

Brown, a successful and popular harness racing figure in the south passed away last month and the Invercargill HRC of which he was a committee member for thirty one years have decided to name a race after him and also the best horse he trained.

The Murray Brown/Beaudiene Bad Babe Pace will be a $30,000 Two Year Old Fillies feature.

As a two year old Beaudiene Bad Babe won five of her ten starts, including the Listed Caduceus Club of Southland/Nevele R Stud Two Year Old Classic.

Meanwhile the IHRC is also looking at naming the passing lane after Brown and one of the barns at Ascot Park will be named ‘Brownie’s Barn’.

Southern pacer Dreams Are Free (Captaintreacherous) will open his four year old season next Sunday in the $20,000 Kurow Cup at Oamaru.

The four year old entire was due back at the races a few weeks ago but had a minor set-back which delayed his return to the track.

Dreams Are Free who last raced in the New Zealand Derby in December is scheduled to have a hit out at the Winton Workouts tomorrow along with Macandrew Aviator and Da Vinci.

On the back of the successful Southern Surge, HRNZ has allocated $50,000 to Southern Harness in this year’s budget to use to top up selected maiden pacing and trotting races across the region.

The funding will be used strategically throughout the year, lifting selected maiden race stakes to $15,000.

Southern Harness General Manager Jason Broad says the funding is expected to filter through into maiden races in October.

Both the Invercargill HRC and the Ashburton Trotting Club have agreed that the placements of Invercargill Cup Day (Friday 19^th December) and Ashburton’s Harness 5000 race day (Sunday 21^st December) are too close to benefit the industry.

Both clubs are keen to widen the gap between the two feature meetings so horses can race at both and they will be talking to HRNZ in order to work through the issue for next seasons calendar.

Central Southland Raceway in Winton and Ascot Park Raceway in Invercargill will be getting TripleSdata.

The system which uses satellite technology (GPS) to track all runners in a race will be installed at both tracks in the coming months.

Each horse is fitted with a tag which collects and transmits centimetre accurate positioning and motion data.

This unique tag has cutting edge GPS/GNSS technology and one of it’s key features includes accurate sectional timing precision, down to centimetres.

Addington uses a similar system called Stride Master.

The technology costs will be covered by Entain.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink