Yesterday, was the final of the enterprising Silk Road Series.
All the best horses from the heats were lined up together. Three Tisbury girls from Kirstin Green's stable and the formidable trio of Williamson brothers ...
Wendy was in the sky, on her way back to New Zealand. Somehow, by a combination of TV-mobile phone-Air NZ-wifi, which is way beyond me, she was able to see the race...
'Sadie' was always hot favourite and would remain so, 'Spirit' was always the outsider, and would remain so. But the other four? 'Mixed Gait' seemed momentarily to be heading for second-favouritism, then Emily zoomed down to $1.04 a place, and finally somebody sane put sufficient on 'Kenny' to ensure her the number two spot.
Four minutes from the start, Emily was offered at 30-1.
Then I noticed the size of the betting pool. Minable!
Two minutes from racetime, Emily was a more reasonable $10, behind the three Williamson horses.
The tapes pinged and, oh no!, race plan (1) out the window. Samantha, who usually begins like an Assyrian arrow, fumbled the start. Would we have to lead to ensure the pace? Please, no! But 'Mixed Gait' came to the rescue. She started splendidly and whisked to the front, with 'Spirit' on her tail. Emily was in third, with Sadie right behind her ...
And for much of the race, trotting along at an increasingly brisk tempo, that order was maintained, with the backmarkers gradually creeping closer .. and 'Spirit' struggling a little. As they turned for home, the leader, too, got a touch of the stitch and ...Mark swept EMILY to the front. Once again, just like last week, I wanted to uproot the winning post and drag it 50 metres back ...
But, this week, unlike last, I wasn't up on my one good foot, yelling. Sadie had, clearly, yet to launch her last rocket. And, just like last week, she launched it just in time to zip to the front in the last hectometres ... And, just as in the first heat, Aroha Kenny whistled down the outside to get past Emily in the final strides.
And the wonderfully gutsy 'Spirit' came in fourth!
The record shows that there was a half length between Sadie and Kenny, with a further half-length back to Emily. Well, if she had to get beaten, it couldn't have been by two grander mares.
'The most improved mare in Southland', commented one horseman. Yes, I'll buy that. And in Southland she will stay. I have no wish to make her travel back to Canterbury, to race Hidden Talent and I Dream of Jeannie and Eurostyle, on Cup Day. Even were it just to stick one up one end, or the other, of the Met Club assholes who illegally ruled her out of the Oaks in her year ...
Yes, that still rankles. Especially when one sees that the said Oaks winner, Con Grazia Love, is reportedly retiring with just seven wins, almost all in rather feeble company, up north. Yes, it is one of ranklingest moments in my quarter-of-a-century racing horses ..
But, at the moment, I am in love with harness racing, in love with our little mare...
I was even about to say 'with Harness Racing New Zealand'. But today a bombshell exploded.
For the past years, we have been forced into an unnatural system of race- and race-meeting management and construction. This business of the R-ratings. A wholly inept effort to keep older horses racing in New Zealand rather than being sold overseas. So it was said. Of course, like any system, it quickly found advised practioners who 'used' the system ... but, even if we others didn't 'use' it, we learned to live with it, and plan our and our horses' year around it.
And today, Friday, HRNZ is changing the rules. Yes, they needed changing, but NOT at 72hrs notice ... and not in the way they have been changed. An investigation is needed. Or total transparency. There are too many 'interested parties' involved.
Why the hurry? Very suspicious. So, has HRNZ done a volte face? do we no longer want to keep older and winning-types on the game? Is this an attempt to foist yearling racing on us instead. Two year-old racing is, already, a sad affair.
Wouldn't be great if we could go back to the 1950s style of racing. But no. We've become a midget-widget in the great global gambling game ....
Who cares for the horses? Some of us.
Awwww. Look, here's our Em having her supper, tonight, with her girlfriend RASPALIA ("Polly, you're winning too many races, too quickly ... those devils at HRNZ will find a way to penalise you!). Back home with trainer Kirstin. The home where she has blossomed so beautifully ...
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