By Michael Guerin
The new superpower of one of New Zealand’s elite stables could help them end the season as our leading money makers at Alexandra Park today.
While there are two Group 1s tonight, the $250,000 Trillian Trust Auckland Cup (7.35pm) and $100,000 Peter Breckon Memorial National Trot (6.25pm), most of the national harness racing premierships are already decided.
Team Telfer had the trainers premiership won six months ago and put an exclamation mark on that when they broke the national record with win 169 for the season at Westport on Sunday.
The driver’s premiership will again prove an easy win for Blair Orange in the year he joined the elite 3000 domestic wins club alongside Tony Herlihy, Maurice McKendry and Ricky May.
The junior drivers premiership is closer but Wilson House is poised to win his first title. He heads into today with a four win lead over defending champion Carter Dalgety , 94 wins to 90.
But another, less official, title could be won tonight, that of the biggest stakes earning stable for the season, with Robert and Jenna Dunn just $6000 behind Team Telfer heading to Alexandra Park.
Neither have super strong teams in today but if Team Dunn are to win the stakes premiership their best chance will come from their growing strength: trotting power.
Robert Dunn has been one of New Zealand’s most talented trainers for over 40 years and trained his 2200th domestic winner on Monday but it is only in the last decade he has excelled with trotters, headlined by the brilliant Sundees Son.
Since that marvel stomped over the New Zealand trotting scene for three wonderful seasons a few years ago, the Dunns’ trotting stocks have continued to strengthen.
They head into today on 109 wins for the season with 44 of those coming with trotters, a record for the Robert and Jenna’s partnership or any other version of the Dunn dynasty over the decades.
That makes them our second most successful stable in trotting races this season, 10 behind Michelle Wallis and Bernie Hackett, who almost exclusively train trotters and have 54 trotting wins.
If Team Dunn is to top the prize money table for the season it will have to come through Mighty Logan, or less likely stablemate Ya Right Darl, in the $100,000 National Trot.
“We love having so many good trotters and this looks an ideal race for Mighty Logan,” says John Dunn, the stable’s No.1 driver and unofficial third training partner.
“He has been going great races and gets the draw to lead this time and he will take a lot of beating.”
John admits three-year-old filly Ya Rite Darl’s entry against many of our open class stars tonight is a “throw at the stumps” but with nothing to lose.
“She is up here, in good form and she will end up racing these horses at some stage next season so she might as well go around and see where she stands.”
Ya Rite Darl will be driven by John and Jenna’s son Jacob, one of the finds of the 2025 season, and while it hard to see how she can win tonight her performance could be a pointer to the future of open class trotting as some of our wonderful veterans near the end of their careers.
If either of that pair win tonight then the Dunns should end 2025 as our highest money-winning stable.
While the enigmatic Oscar Bonavena is an obvious danger in the National another newcomer to the open ranks in Hillbilly Blues could test Mighty Logan because while he is still a work in progress he has the motor of a top trotter.
To see the field for the National Trot click here
