McKenzie clan roll into Cambridge for their Queen

All roads lead to Cambridge on Friday and the McKenzie family from Southland will be heading to the raceway in force to see their pride and joy Queen Elida (Love You) race in the $600,000 TAB Trot on harness racing’s biggest night.

Gordon McKenzie along with his sons Graeme, Blair and Brad, and Tony and Cheryl Barron race Queen Elida who in 59 starts in Aussie has won 34, earning $775,050.

The six year old trotting mare has won six Group One races – the Bill Collins Trotters Sprint, MacArthur Trotters Mile, Sumthingaboutmaori Trotters FFA, La Coocaracha, Victoria Oaks and Need For Speed Princess Final.

Trained in Victoria by ex-pat kiwi Brent Lilley, Queen Elida is named after Gordon’s two eldest granddaughters Ida (12) and Elsie (9) and they’re coming over from Tauranga where they now live to see their namesake race for the very first time.

Queen Elida raced at Cambridge last week as a pipe opener for the TAB Trot, running a tidy second to Oscar Bonavena.

“She was always going to the front. Puppet (driver Chris Alford) said she raced a bit fierce and had a wee blow afterwards, but he was happy. I had a good yarn to Mark Purdon (driver of Oscar Bonavena), and he told me that our mare went exceptional. Puppet is hoping whoever goes to the lead won’t hand up and we’ll get a trail. But as you well know it doesn’t always work out that way.” McKenzie said.

Gordon and his partner Nicki Bellew have been staying with northern commentator George Simon and his wife Maryanne in Cambridge.

“They’re great people up here and we’re getting very well looked after.”

Tracey Cullen, Brent’s partner has been looking after Queen Elida, but she flew back to Melbourne on Sunday and Gordon picked Brent up from the airport yesterday.

“He’s over here for the second part of the trip.”

Gordon’s nephew All Black Damian McKenzie, through his company Grins which he owns with fellow All Blacks Anton Lienert-Brown and Steven Donald, is the meeting’s premier sponsor.

“I was at the rugby on Saturday night and took young Jack Lilley over. He’s an AFL guy so I got him educated in rugby and he got a photo with Damian, so he was rapt. Damian will be at the draw tonight but they play the Hurricanes on Saturday in Wellington so he can’t get to the races.”

After the TAB Trot, Queen Elida will head back to Australia and race in the $100,000 Macarthur Mile for mares at Menangle on May 5^th – a race she won last year by 17.5 metres in 1-53.0.

“We’ll make a decision after that on whether we come back for the Rowe Cup.”

Barron and McKenzie are breeding from Queen Elida’s full sister Queen Bea and the partnership has a Tactical Landing filly out of the mare.

“I had a good yarn to Phil Williamson and he said to me to keep breeding out of the sister and keep racing Queen Elida for a year or two. He said the family get better with age.”

McKenzie and Barron bought Queen Elida’s dam Queen Kenny from Williamson in 2019 after her first start.

Queen Kenny’s latest foal is a colt by What The Hill. It’s been weaned and sent south to Barron and she’s back in foal to Tactical Landing, so the partnership has some choices when it comes to deciding whether to race or sell.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink