By Michael Guerin
At the end of a night of questions at Addington on Friday there was a statement.
And the one Jumal made came with an exclamation mark.
The Steven Reid-trained juvenile capped a magical night of harness racing with a remarkable performance in the NZBS Harness Million, overcoming a second line draw and having to settle well back to bolt in.
He did so after being forced three wide from the 800m and he when he should have flinched Jumal did something else: he produced one of the great juvenile pacing wins in New Zealand this century.
Make no mistake, we have had some great, great juveniles in the last 25 years in this country but Jumal’s performance would be in the top 10 by any of them since we ticked over 2000.
He was brave and brilliant, suggesting somewhere inside what is not the deepest girth ever seen on a racetrack is a disproportionately large heart.
It always helps when a really good horse has likeable connections and Jumal has that at owner, trainer and driver level.
But there is no telling how far he will go. Some juveniles are shooting stars who never grow enough to improve or whose speed eventually leads to issues that rob them of longevity.
So nobody is declaring Reidman’s latest star a future New Zealand Cup winner just yet but what he did in the last lap on Friday wasn’t the stuff of a good juvenile. He is a great one.
Jumal will get another chance to prove that in the $200,000 Woodlands Stud Sires’ Stakes at Addington on Cup Day.
He is so good his much-deserved hype will weave seamlessly into the Group 1 fabric of our greatest race day.
While the son of Downbytheseaside was ending arguments on Friday night many of the other big-race performances only added to the intrigue in their crops, case in point, Got The Chocolates’ win in the Dakin Group Flying Stakes.
He had hinted with two dazzlers earlier this campaign that he was closing the gap on Marketplace and Rubira but in Friday night it was they who could not close the gap on him.
After they sorted themselves out early, with Marketplace crossing to the lead from a passive Rubira, Got The Chocolates came knocking and they opened the door.
Even on a night dominated by leaders or those on the markers you would have taken short odds about Marketplace running past Got The Chocolates up the passing lane but a beautifully-judged John Dunn 26.5 last 400m on the leader left Marketplace with too much to do.
There is at least a twist, maybe two, in Marketplace before The Velocity and the NZ Derby but Got The Chocolates is now a horse to be feared and races that looked like Marketplace’s to lose may prove to have a few more moving parts.
But that was the story of the night, the top horses against the marker pegs going so fast for so long they couldn’t be caught.
One exception was Kyvalley Ray, the Williamson-bred trotter sold to a good guy in Jim Connolly who came home to win the $75,000 NZBS Harness Million Trot for trainer Brent Lilley.
He was one of the few all night to buck the trend of being on the markers and still be able to win.
A trend that Jumal later treated with joyous distain in the richest race of the spring so far to light the fuse of Cup week.
