Latest news with #HarnessRacingNewZealand
Otago Daily Times
15-07-2025
- Automotive
- Otago Daily Times
Teen hopes to follow in family's footsteps
Harness racer Millie Bond with her pony George, or ''Ginger Ninja'', at her grandparents' stables in Mataura. PHOTO: ELLA SCOTT-FLEMING A Gore 16-year-old selected to go harness racing in Brisbane this week is hoping to follow in her family's footsteps. Millie Bond has been chosen by Harness Racing New Zealand to travel overseas to compete as part of the Interdominion Mini Trots. Millie said she hoped to follow the path of her grandfather Jimmy, who was a harness racing trainer, and her father Lyndon, who still is. "I just hope to go forward and carry on the family reputation," she said. She races her pony with Kidz Kartz Southland, an educational group that promotes harness racing among young people, which put her name forward for the opportunity. "I was pretty shocked when I found out that I'd been selected," she said. It will be Millie's first time on a plane and she said she was pretty excited. There will be a meet-and-greet in Brisbane on Friday with the other young hopefuls at the Redcliffe race course, and the next night they will compete. Millie Bond racing Ginger Ninja in Winton. PHOTO: SUPPLIED Millie will not be driving her pony George, whose racing name is "Ginger Ninja", but a supplied horse. She had been in the driver's cart for three seasons racing her miniature pony before moving on to George. Through Kidz Kartz she learns from the other young people who are also in the industry, as well as from the instructors Justin and Michelle Fulton. Millie has been around horses since she was little and she loves it. She is doing a Gateway course at Telford Woolshed and Stables, as well as Tony Shepherd's in Gore. "It's a different environment but you get used to doing different things because all types of stables do different things," she said. With this school-to-industry pathway she is hoping to leave school soon and pursue her love of horses fulltime.
NZ Herald
09-05-2025
- Climate
- NZ Herald
Heavy rain forces Alexandra Park meeting to be postponed after one race
Horses who were scratched from the Friday meeting have the option to re-enter Saturday's fields for what will be an eight-race card. 'There wasn't a lot we could do because the rain was so heavy,' said Harness Racing New Zealand's Matt Peden, who was at Alexandra Park. 'But speaking to John Denton [track expert] he is confident, if the weather plays its part, with a bit of work we will be good to go for tomorrow night.' The second Friday to Saturday shift at Alexandra Park in three weeks will make for a big Saturday night for harness racing fans as the Group 1 meeting will race alongside a huge card at Menangle, outside Sydney, where trotting heroine Keayang Zahara will be the star of the show as she contests the $100,000 Macarthur Mile. Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald's Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world's biggest horse racing carnivals.
