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Courier-Mail
12-05-2025
- Sport
- Courier-Mail
Greg Sugars memorial service: Melton, Monday May 12, 2025
Don't miss out on the headlines from Horse Racing. Followed categories will be added to My News. Champion harness racing horseman Greg Sugars will today be farewelled at a memorial service at Melton, a track where he scored so many of his biggest wins. A large crowd is expected at the 12pm service, which is open to the public and will feature heartfelt tributes from Sugars' family and closest friends in the Legends Room at Melton Entertainment Park. For those unable to attend, the service will be live streamed via Sugars, 40, died in his sleep on April 25 at the height of his powers. • PUNT LIKE A PRO: Become a Racenet iQ member and get expert tips – with fully transparent return on investment statistics – from Racenet's team of professional punters at our Pro Tips section. SUBSCRIBE NOW! The South Australian-bred horseman boasted a Hall of Fame record. He won 71 Group 1 races and drove more than 4000 winners, including wins all around Australia, NZ and even in the US. In recent years, Sugars' success with his wife and training partner, Jess Tubbs, and their champion trotter Just Believe had propelled the pair to international stardom. Just Believe won a legion of Scandinavian fans during his three-race Swedish trip in 2023. Last year, the mighty trotter raced six times in NZ for five wins and a second, including wins in the country's three biggest trotting races, the TAB Trot, Rowe Cup and Dominion Trot. Just recently, Sugars partnered the unbeaten Always Hot to win the Group 1 NSW Derby and said he was one of the most exciting pacers he had ever driven. Sugars is remembered by his wife Jess, father Ross, mother Kerry, sister Kylie and many close friends. • Adam Hamilton is a paid contributor writing on harness racing for News Corp. Originally published as Champion harness racing identity Greg Sugars to be farewelled at memorial service at Melton today
NZ Herald
08-05-2025
- Sport
- NZ Herald
Horse racing: Shortest way home the key to Group 1 glory at The Park
5: Hillbilly (R9, No 8): Sat parked in Northern Derby last start and before that had two big seconds off handicaps. Value each way option. If Alexandra Park races true to recent form for tonight's $200,000 Magness Benrow Sires' Stakes, there may be fewer winning chances in the Group 1 field than it appears as first glance. Because while the race is the strongest of the 3-year-old pacing fillies season so far, the girls covering the least ground should hold a huge advantage. Tonight's meeting caps a golden six weeks for northern harness racing but the most obvious trend has been the biggest race winners almost always coming from on the marker pegs. It was the case in all five Group 1 races here two weeks ago and two of the three held at Alexandra Park last week. It was also the case when Arcee Phoenix won the $600,000 TAB Trot at Cambridge last month, with the most jarring exception to the marker-pegs domination being Leap To Fame in the $1 million Race by Betcha, but is an exception to a lot of rules. The reasons for the popular pegs are well known: the times being recorded these days are so fast, horses coming wide often face having to break national records just to keep up. That trend looks set to continue in tonight's 2200m mobile Sires' Stakes and if it does, it gives an enormous advantage to Beside Me (Race 8, No 3) and most likely General Jen (No 2). Beside Me looks the likely leader and driver Carter Dalgety says if he gets there, he won't be handing the lead away. 'She got a little too excited for her own good in the Oaks last start but that was 2700m, whereas being 2200m this week, I can let her roll more,' says Dalgety. Beside Me was beaten in that Oaks by Arafura, who is in tonight's race but faces a second-line draw so it could be her stablemate General Jen who emerges as the main danger to the favourite. General Jen was allowed to miss the earlier northern 3-year-old features by co-trainer Hayden Cullen and she looked a fresh and happy horse when she bolted away with her Alexandra Park debut against older pacers last Friday. If she can use her gate speed to cross to the markers and trail Beside Me, she could try the same sit-and-snipe tactics Arafura did two weeks ago. 'I have no doubts Arafura is the best of our fillies but she may not be the best chance this week,' says Cullen. 'I can see General Jen getting the better run, hopefully on the back of Beside Me, and she really impressed me how she won up here last Friday. 'Arafura is tougher but if she has to race in the running line, it becomes a lot harder for her.' One horse who could be on the markers but not the best version of them is Southland filly Captains Mistress. She looks the real deal but faces being three or even four deep on the markers and if so, could need an intense war up front to open gaps for her to chase down tired legs later. Her trainer-driver Nathan Williamson also brings his one-start, one-win juvenile trotter Duchess Maria (R4, No 2) north for the $50,000 IRT Young Gun Final in which she will have to handle the right-handed track to down Redpark Warrior. Tonight's other major trot, the $120,000 IRT Trotters Championship, should probably see Meant To Be continued on his winning march but the reduction in distance from 2700m last start to 2200m mobile tonight gives him less time to overcome his unruly start point.
NZ Herald
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Naughty Oscar expected to be on best behaviour on Anzac Day at Alexandra Park
Oscar Bonavena finds himself in the unusual position of blowing the start from behind a mobile plenty of times in the last year, but actually being better behaved from a standing start. His biggest gaffe came in the $600,000 TAB Trot at Cambridge last start when he exploded into a full gallop at the start, extinguishing his own chances, and he was lucky not to take out eventual winner Arcee Phoenix. Purdon says the veteran trotter has been on his best behaviour in his work since and Purdon's only option is to turn the page. 'He has been really good in his work, and we all know he has been a bit funny in mobile races, but I don't think he will have any issues from a stand,' says Purdon. 'I'd love to see him step well because the horse on the front line will run along with it being only 2200m, and for the horses on the handicaps, the closer they can settle the better. 'So it could be a race where one of the big names that can step best might end up the best winning chance.' With Bet N Win, Muscle Mountain, Not As Promised and Queen Elida also back on that 10m mark Oscar Bonavena will have plenty of high-class rivals in the same boat as him. Blair Orange will partner Oscar Bonavena as Purdon is suspended and he also drives Chase A Dream in the $100,000 Dawson Harford Messenger for the elite pacers. Chase A Dream's season and maybe career looked to be in the balance after a couple of dreadful runs to start this season, but he bounced back with a huge win in the Flying Mile at Cambridge and a brave second to Leap To Fame in the $1 million Race by Betcha. With no Merlin in Friday's 2700m mobile Chase A Dream is the $2.60 favourite after drawing barrier 6, with Auckland Cup winner Republican Party the big winner in the draw, securing the ace. 'I am rapt with how he is working and I am really glad I let him miss the Taylor Mile [two weeks ago],' says Purdon. 'I think he will be hard to beat and I wouldn't be scared to see Blair use him off the gate as he will be good in front.' 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.
