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HORSES

 

YEAR: 2020

Gavin Smith has made the tough call to pull the plug on the career of Great Things Happen, his first and only Group 1 winner to date.

The big eight-year-old gelding by Love You has battled a myriad of issues arising from poor conformation and bad gait throughout his career, racing only 45 times over six seasons for his 16 wins and $234,000 in stakes for Smith and breeder Ted Edwards.

“His feet are actually the best they’ve ever been at the moment and physically there’s not a lot wrong with him,” said Smith.

“He worked 3.15 home in 27 the other day and normally you’d be pretty happy with that, but he’s just not the horse that he was.

“He’s only running at probably 85% and you can’t be at that when competing against the big boys.

“His main problem has been his gait and hitting his near side hind shin, but it’s just been one thing after another in recent years and I think things have built up and got the better of him mentally.

“He deserves better and as he won’t tolerate retirement very well, we’ll find a trekking home for him, and then there will always be a paddock here for him.”

Smith recalls seeing Great Things Happen when he was offered at the Premier Sale by Edwards and passed in.



“I could see he had bad conformation then and I thought he would hit himself, so he wasn’t one that I was going to buy.

“But Ted offered to do a deal on him and as he was well enough bred, so I agreed to take him.

“For a start he was big and weak and just hopeless and at one point I threw in a paddock and had pretty much finished with him.

“But I never got around to making the call to Ted to tell him he’d been sacked.

“There were sentimental reasons that went with him as my first child (daughter Hayley) had been born the morning of the sales or the day a horse called Great Things Happen came through the gate.

“And then each time I brought him back in, he got better and better as he got older and stronger.

“He would hit himself but he wouldn’t break, so you knew he had a big heart and a big motor.”

Great Things Happen made rapid progress when he did begin racing and at one point won five races in a row as a late four-year-old.

As he’d made open class after just 16 races, Smith then sent him to Greg Sugars in Victoria to “harden up” in lesser company and Great Things Happen won four of his seven races there, including a Warragul Cup.

Back home in the spring of 2017, Great Things Happen won the Ashburton Flying Mile in 1.55.4 over a top field and then he bolted away with the NZ Trotting FFA on Cup day in a 1.56.9 mile rate.

That was a national record for 1950m which still stands and it is faster than Tough Monarch’s 1980m record set at the last Cup meeting.

At this point, Great Things Happen seemed to have the world at his feet and he went into the Dominion as a hot favourite.
But he was an abject failure that day and it has been a real battle since for Smith.

Great Things Happen was going good again in the early part of last season and after skipping the FFA, he was again one of the favourites for the Dominion, but again he performed poorly due to a virus that had swept through Smith’s stable.

“He’s always been a lot of hard work, but the Dominion proved a bogey race for him being at the wrong time of the year.

“When things dry off he gets allergies from the dust.

“We got him back a year ago to win twice at Addington, but then he broke a splint bone, and this season has been a real struggle.

“We’ve been managing a succession of little issues for 2-3 years now and it’s got to a point where everybody concerned has said enough is enough.”


Credit: Harnesslink Media, 2 March 2020 : by Frank Marrion courtesy of the HarnessXpress

 

YEAR: 2019

An old-fashioned workload produced a new best version of Habibi Inta in the $300,000 Dominion at Addington yesterday.

And after his graphic demolition job in our richest trot the big stallion has thrown down the gauntlet to his rivals in the Inter Dominion Trotting series which starts at Alexandra Park in 13 days.

Habibi Inta made the most of a perfect Blair Orange drive and the early gallop of favourite Oscar Bonavena to bolt away with the group one, giving Orange the dream double of Cup week after his New Zealand Cup on Tuesday.

Already a group one winner at the Harness Jewels two seasons ago, Habibi Inta went to a whole new level yesterday and that was after some tough love from trainer extraordinaire Paul Nairn.

“After he won at Kaikoura last week I kept the work right up to him,” explains Nairn.

“I knew he would have to be fit, really fit for the 3200m and he handled the work beautifully.

“I thought he could win because he was so fit but I’ll be honest, I didn’t think he could do that.”
 It was a career statement win from Habibi Inta as he sat off the hot speed set by Marcola and jogged past him at the top of the straight.

It was a dramatic reversal of their previous clash at Ashburton when Marcoola thrashed him by 13 lengths, showing how the right horse on the day wins the group ones this season.

Nairn will now bring the big, muscular six-year-old to Auckland for an Inter Dominion where some of his key rivals have question marks hanging over their heads.

Aussie raider Tough Monarch was a brave second yesterday capping a great week while veteran Monty Python surged into third while Marcoola was out of gas at the top of the straight.

Another Australian visitor in McLovin suffered a case of the thumps but should be good to go for the Inters, a series Oscar Bonavena will miss.

The latter was slightly checked into a gallop after 400m when horses galloped both inside and outside, leaving trainer-driver Mark Purdon enormously disappointed as he tailed off. Punters didn’t enjoy it much either.

But Purdon bounced back two races later when Chase Auckland made the most of the trail-passing lane run to win the $200,000 NZ Free-For-All.

A brave and luckless fourth in the NZ Cup three days earlier, Chase Auckland got all the luck this time as he was destined to be three back on the inside but Cruz Bromac galloped when heading to the lead, which left Classie Brigade in front and Chase Auckland in the luxury spot.

All the main players from the F-F-A will head to the Inter Dominions where they will be met by a fresh wave of Australians.



Credit: Harnesslink Media, 16 Nov 2019, Michael Guerin

 

YEAR: 2019

The Aussies have sent shockwaves through the Australasian trotting ranks with a dominant one-two in today's Commodore Airport Hotel Free For All.

Tough Monarch led all-the-way to salute in the $100,000 Group 1 in track record time, with Rickie Alchin's New South Wales trotter narrowly holding off fast-finishing Victorian McLovin, who was a clear second for Andy and Kate Gath.



Winning reinsman Anthony Butt, who arrived on track only minutes before the big race owing to a delayed flight, said he "could feel (McLovin) coming up the straight" but held on to win narrowly.

“It’s a big thing for an Aussie horse to win a Group 1 over here, it doesn’t happen very often," Butt said. "Good on them for giving it a go and getting the result.

“(Tough Monarch) has come on in leaps and bounds the last 12 months. Big credit to Rickie, he’s handled it beautifully and I’m very lucky to be on it."

The result will only further fuel speculation, revealed pre-race by Adam Hamilton, that McLovin's on-again off-again tilt at the forthcoming Inter Dominion may be back on again. More is expected to be known at weeks end, Hamilton said on the Sky Racing Active coverage.

For the victor, the win is enormous reward for Alchin, who invested great patience into Tough Monarch.

Starting his life in Queensland, the young colt looked set to be a case of a talented horse who went off the rails, having been considered unsuitable for racing due to his headstrong nature.

That was until talented young trainer Alchin broke the horse in.

Tough Monarch then went to Dennis Wilson, who had trained the trotter’s mother in the latter part of her career, but two or three preps later and he had done all he could to little avail.

“I had always had in the back of my mind that I’d like to have a go with him if the opportunity ever came up,” Alchin said. “Make no mistake, when I broke him in he was very difficult to handle, but you just couldn’t get to the bottom of him on the track, he was so strong.

“I said to Dennis (Wilson) that if he ever had enough that I wouldn’t mind trying him out and that’s how it all sort of unfolded.”

Almost four years later, the horse that was once destined for the scrap heap in an international Group 1 winner.

Credit: Hanresslink Media, 12 Noc 2019; HRV Trots Media



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