Jones marks his trotters

Canterbury trainer Mark Jones will take three trotters to tomorrow afternoon’s (Apr. 28) harness racing meeting at Addington.

Most attention will be on progressive four year old Hot To Trot (Creatine) who resumes after finishing last in December’s New Zealand Trotting Derby. Last season he won five of his sixteen starts, stringing together three wins in a row between August and October.

He’s had no trials or workouts leading into the race and hasn’t placed in six races from the stand, so that’s a query for tomorrow’s 2600 metre handicap race.

“He’s got the half hopples on for the first time and we’ve changed his shoeing but to be honest I’ll be very surprised if he goes away and if he did, he’d probably be a big chance of galloping afterwards,” Jones said.

Jones added that Hot To Trot is booked to fly to Sydney in two weeks where he’ll be trained by Jack Trainor.

“There is no racing here for him for the next six weeks so we’ll send him over there for at least twelve months. There’s a race for him every Saturday night with a $20,000 minimum (stake) and the racing is over a mobile mile so we can’t turn that down.”

Jones points to former New Zealand trotter Queen Elida (Love You) as a good example of a horse that’s thrived on getting consistent mobile racing in Australia.

“Hot To Trot is probably one of the most up and coming trotters in New Zealand and it’s a shame to lose him, but you’ve got to do the best thing for the owners.”

Bella Button (Waterloo Sunset) has been a real revelation since joining the Jones stable winning five of her six starts.

“She was having a lot of trouble tying up before we got her so we’ve tried a completely different way of training her. It seems to have worked and she’s a happy horse who’s been in the right races.” 

Bella Button has been well matched with stable driver Gemma Thornley who’s driven her in all of her wins, all of which have been from the stand.

“Just getting a half point (penalty) with Gemma on as a junior has been a big help so it means she hasn’t really got out of her own grade yet.”

Tomorrow’s field is a good deal stronger than she’s faced previously.

“It’s a massive step up but she’s got manners and she tries hard. If she ran top four in that race you’d be over the moon. She’s a place chance but I can’t see her beating those good ones.”

Evergreen trotting mare Sioux Princess (Majestic Son) also represents the stable in this race. She’s the winner of eighteen races with twelve of those from the stand.

“She’s an amazing horse but she’s not going as good as she can. But Addington are good enough to put the mares trotting races on so we like to support them.” 

Tomorrow night’s meeting commences at 2.13pm with coverage on Trackside 1.

For complete race entries, click here.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink