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“It is the greatest cup win of all time”
The win of Terror To Love in the New Zealand Trotting Cup of 2013 was indeed something special.
The win, and the way in which victory was secured, elevated the son of Western Terror into the pantheon of great champions – now he strode beside Indianapolis and False Step, themselves three-time winners of the greatest of all New Zealand harness racing contests.
The major races leading up to the New Zealand Trotting Cup of 2023 had seen, at least in most pundits’ eyes, two major chances emerge, Terror To Love – who had won the Ashburton Flying Stakes in fine style, and the son of Christian Cullen in Christen Me – a horse who had beaten the Graham and Paul Court trained champion in the Canterbury Classic a month prior.
The field assembled for the New Zealand Cup of 2023 would also include the Australians Suave Stuey Lombo and Caribbean Blaster, the Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen trained Fly Like An Eagle and the Hamish Hunter speed merchant Franco Ledger, the winner of the Hannon Memorial of that year when proving too strong for Four Starzzz Flash and Mach Banner.
Despite the tractable nature of the race results leading up to the major race itself, at least in terms of the favoured winners, one nagging irritation had yet to be totally silenced – that being the early standing start manners of the major chances. Christen Me had broken in the Ashburton Flying Stakes while Terror To Love, never too much of a saint from behind the tapes, had scrambled away in the Avon City Ford New Brighton Cup – it was against this story of uncertainty that the NZ Trotting Cup of 2013 would soon lend itself to one of the great calls of New Zealand harness racing.
A seemingly catastrophic blunder as the tapes released, a mid-race move that heightened the suspense, and a final 400m meters that could hardly be believed. Harness racing history at Addington.
Watch and listen to the great call below
