Jasmyn’s Gift a step in the right direction

If the nominations are anything to by, the revamped Hannon Memorial Day to be held at the Oamaru Trotting Club this Sunday promises to be one of the early highlights of the new harness racing calendar.

The eleven-race card has attracted plenty of interest from stables all over the South Island of New Zealand which has resulted in Hannon Memorial Day becoming much watch television for anyone interested in the sport.

For complete race entries, click here.

One of the features on the card is the inaugural running of the Group Three Jasmyn’s Gift Fillies & Mares Stakes.

It marks the first-time mares will contest a trotting feature for black type in the South Island, something that sounds utterly absurd when you say it out loud.

Revisionary history is futile for an industry that needs to look forward, however, to know where you are going, sometimes you need to understand where you have been.

Many will be aware of the irony surrounding the fact that the most iconic race in Australasian harness racing is a pacing race called the New Zealand Trotting Cup.

The first installment of the great race was won by a square gaiter no less in Monte Carlo in 1904.

Reta Peter won the New Zealand Cup in successive years back in 1920 & 1921, but since then it has been a race reserved for those wearing hopples.

Wrackler won both the New Zealand Cup as a pacer in 1930 and two years later the Dominion Handicap as a trotter, something nearly 100 years on we haven’t seen happen again.

I don’t confess to be a great historian of what happened in yesteryear, but I do know a trotting mare won the Dominion Handicap every decade since its inception in 1911, that was until the decade just gone.

The last trotting mare to win the Dominion Handicap was Martina H when she dead heated with Take A Moment in 2002.

The same has happened with the time-honoured Rowe Cup, every decade since its inception in 1919, a mare had won the great race except for the decade just gone. The last mare to win the Rowe Cup being One Over Kenny in 2009.

I contacted several leading trotting trainers for thoughts as to why that was.

Paul Nairn believed while it could possibly be an improvement in the breed, it was also possibly just a cycle in which we haven’t produced a real topline mare.

Michelle Wallis made a point that made as much sense as any, in that due to a lack of a pathway, most of our best trotting fillies are retired prematurely to stud where their true value lies.

Kevin Townley agreed entirely with that sentiment and while he conceded it was nigh on impossible for Vacation Hill to be competitive up the grades chasing Sundees Son, she would probably still be in his care had some of the improvements to the aged trotting mares calendar been made sooner.

Instead, she is racing around Victoria for nearly $20,000 every fortnight without having to race a male.

How many trotting mares have been prematurely retired or sold offshore due to limited racing opportunities against their own sex? And had there been that pathway would we have seen Tickle Me Pink or Wilma’s Mate prolong their careers and add to the overall dynamic of our racing population with the class they undoubtedly still had to offer?

The North Island has had the virtue of being home to the Group Three Northern Breeders Stakes since 1996, which for 25 years was the only group race for trotting mares in the country.

$30,000 out of an operating budget north of $40 million was somehow acceptable, as too was the fact that less than 2% of all trotting races in the same period were exclusive to the fairer sex.

In 2020 a group of trotting enthusiasts led by Waikato breeder, Ken McGrath saw the Waikato Trotting Breeders Stakes installed and lifted to Group Three status for each of the last two seasons.

Prior to this, the trotting mares were virtually ignored and asked to race the Open Class males if they were to have any hope of adding black type to their resume.

296 open class group trotting races have been run over the last 20 years in New Zealand and less than 10% of them have been won by a trotting mare.

There have been only 17 mares able to beat the boys, with six of them coming in the Group Three Greenlane Cup where the race is run under genuine handicapped conditions from a stand.

Only eight trotting mares have won a Group One trotting race in New Zealand in the last 20 years with the last being Habibti Ivy in the 2017 Anzac Cup. Quite A Moment won the National Trot before her in 2016.

HABIBTI IVY | 2017 ANZAC CUP REPLAY

Three of the eight Group One winners were at one point in time trained out the Oamaru stable of Phil & Bev Williamson with One Over Kenny, Allegro Agitato, and Jasmyn’s Gift the last link to a time in which the trotting girls were competitive against the best males in the country.

It was a golden era that included the likes of Paris Metro, Inspire, Toomuch To Do, Belle Galleon, Ruthless Jenny, Martina H, and countless others racing champions like Lyell Creek, Take A Moment, and Stig.

Before them were the likes of Tussle and Pride of Petite but now we are talking about an era where the wider public was actually interested in racing. Those days are gone, and so are the mares from our open class racing population.

It doesn’t have to be that way!

The Jasmyn’s Gift poses to be one of the best betting races on the programme at Oamaru, as was the case with the Waikato Breeders Stakes and Heather Williams Memorial on their respective programmes.

The irony is the likely race favourite for this weekend, My Moments Now (Andover Hall), was likely to be retired to stud following the race. As although there was a $50,000 mares trot programmed for November, the governing body hadn’t properly communicated its inclusion until several weeks after it was agreed to.

If this sport is serious about better utilization of its available product, forget worrying about catering to a grade below rating 35’s. Start here.

The word trotting itself has almost been taboo in New Zealand, and despite a growing presence in both breeding numbers and popularity, this hasn’t been reflected in stakemoney or equal opportunity.

To say that progress at a decision-making level has been slow would be an understatement compared to the likes of Victoria across the ditch. And even then, you would argue that without enthusiasts like Pat Driscoll and Duncan McPherson pouring time and money into growing the gait, would they have made any progress at all?

In many ways, the archaic thinking that trotting mares were competitive against the males represents so much that is wrong with the administration of harness racing.

Using misguided beliefs and ideology rather than facts and figures to make decisions has led us down a garden path to where the sport is almost on its knees.

If I can be proud of anything in my seven years involved in administration, it’s that I went to war for this marginalised sector of our racing population, despite facing ridicule and strong opposition from decision makers along the way.

Even when progress was made, there were those determined to undermine it. Case in point, how could anyone with half a brain program the second running of the North Island Trotting Oaks a day before the inaugural running of the Southland Trotting Oaks?

The three-year-old trotting fillies finally get some opportunity thanks to the sponsorship of Haras Des Trotteurs, and one man’s opinion of it being self-serving was to act outside the best interests of the participants who invariably keep him employed and camp the two races on top of each other.

I am hopeful that with the inclusion of Jasmyn’s Gift, the promotion of the Heather Williams Memorial to a Group Three and a Group Two mares race to be run in Addington in November, we now have a pathway to providing a much-needed Group One opportunity for trotting mares in New Zealand.

The drums are beating, and the participants have made themselves heard loud and clear.

Show me the last time a group race in this country in either gait had 20 nominations.

I think I’ll be waiting a while.

The introduction of world-class trotting genetics thanks to the likes of Majestic Son and the frozen semen stars such as Love You and Muscle Hill has seen an explosion of speed and improvement in the gait, with trotters now capable of going times many felt were only possible by pacers.

Gone are the days of converted pacers and dual-gaited sires and breeders here have been responsible for that.

When they race for significantly less stake money and struggle to get a fair go, you must ask yourself why?

Perhaps we trotting folks are ‘zealots’, after all.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink