By Michael Guerin
There isn’t much Robert Dunn hasn’t achieved in his career.
He was winning the biggest pacing Cups decades ago and Diamond Racing then started adding big trotting success to their arsenal just a few years ago.
But now, when he should be in the twilight of his career, the man known as “RJ” has found another special horse, this time to share with daughter-in-law and training partner Jenna and his son John.
Because Got The Chocolate is the real deal.
He has to be because he shouldn’t have been able to do what he did in The Velocity at Addington on Friday, sit three wide then parked and beat a very good horse in Marketplace.
And for good measure tear 1.4 seconds off the 1980m mobile three-year-old national record, all after never seeing the marker pegs.
It was the third straight time Got The Chocolates has bested Marketplace after playing second fiddle to him for the first year of their careers.
Make no mistake, there are no excuses and no arguments: Got The Chocolates is our best three-year-old pacer.
Not by much, but by enough.
“That was very special because it was such a great race, what racing needs,” said Dunn.
“He has always been a good horse but when he had no gate speed it made it so hard on him.
“But we added a nose roll to his gear which helps him concentrate better behind the gate and that has helped him get handier early.
“But of course he is also bigger and stronger. He is just a better horse than he used to be.”
The pair will clash again in next Friday’s NZ Derby for which Got The Chocolates is now incredibly the $1.45 favourite, with Marketplace at $3.20, odds which would have seemed impossible at the start of this campaign.
“We are so thrilled to have a horse like him for Ross and Angela (Gordon, owners) and we will get him home tonight and get him into the surf tomorrow to help him recover.”
Safely through the next Friday’s Derby, Got The Chocolates could even tempt Team Dunn to look at a race like the Chariots Of Fire at Menangle in March, a track that would suit his racing style but might charge his some hefty tax for his lack of gate speed.
“We haven’t campaigned one in Australia for a long time but maybe this horse could change that,” says RJ.
HIs incredible form resurgence also suggests that whoever wins next Friday’s Derby could be named New Zealand Three-Year-Old Pacer of the Year.
Just another unbelievable possibility this most wild of Cup Weeks has raised.