Category: Meeting Previews

Check out this week’s The Box Seat ahead of Auckland’s big night with five Group 1s and Invercargill’s Diamonds Day.   

This is a reminder that even if you haven’t finalised the ownership for the yearling purchased at the NZB Standardbred National Yearling Sales earlier this year, you are still required to submit a transfer of ownership by Friday, May 2, 2025.  The transfer document will have been sent to you by NZ Bloodstock, providing the horse has been paid for in full. This initial transfer is FREE, however if a subsequent transfer is required after this date, the normal $85 fee will apply. If the ownership is still to be…

By Mike Love  It was appropriate that Lord Fantasy gave Oamaru trainer Steve Allen a win in yesterday’s Gavelhouse.com mobile pace.  Because that’s exactly where he acquired the horse in the first place. “I bought him off Gavelhouse. Paul Kerr trained him. He said he just needed time. When he won at Oamaru he called me and said it’s great you’ve got him going,” said Allen.   That first win was on debut in December 2023. Yesterday’s success was the Betting Line five-year-old’s second in 22 race day starts. It…

By Brigette Solomon The Graeme Rogerson stable has three runners at tonight’s meeting at Cambridge Raceway that stable foreman and driver James Stormont all considers good each way chances. First up for the stable is the first starter Big Wheels who contests the MVS Equine Hospital Mobile Pace over 2200 metres. The three-year-old gelding is a full brother to the 9-race winner Chimichurri and he starts tonight’s race from barrier 10. Big Wheels has had two educational workouts in preparation for his debut and in his most recent he finished…

By Michael Guerin Got The Chocolates joined the rarest of racing clubs at Alexandra Park on Saturday night: horses who won a race they were scratched from. And he beat the budding superstar of New Zealand pacing in Marketplace to do it. The three-year-old pacer was enormous in the Woodlands Stud Northern Derby Prelude at Alexandra Park on Saturday night, sitting parked before holding out the red hot favourite in Marketplace, courtesy of a blazing 26 second last 400m. The irony for punters is Got The Chocolates, who was originally…

By Mike Love  South Canterbury trainer Noel Taylor is cautious about the chances of Swift Dream ($5.00FF) in Race 11, the Sheree Tomlinson and Matt Cross Trot at Monday’s Banks Peninsula meeting at Addington Raceway.  Although the nine-year-old Superfast Stuart gelding has been trotting in a fine vein of form lately winning two of his last three starts, three of four of Swift Dream’s wins have come on grass. The 12-race programme starts at 11.15am at Addington after being transferred from Motukarara because of bad weather over the past few…