Intense interest in today’s Addington feature staying test for top pacers

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 47

Intense interest in today’s Addington feature staying test for top pacers

For a little more than four minutes at 3.40 p.m. today the attention of a high proportion of the population of New Zealand and more than just a few in Australia will centre on Addington Raceway. That is the starting time of the $225,000 Toyota New Zealand Cup, the Metropolitan Trotting Club’s premier event of the season and the highlight of carnival week in Christchurch. This year marks the first time that the country’s greatest staying test for pacers has been sponsored. As a result the stake is the greatest for 1985 for any horse race run in New Zealand, and it is $lOO,OOO larger than was paid last November. It will be surpassed next February when the $250,000 Auckland Cup is run at Alexandra Park. The club's committee,

headed by the president, Mr Dan McCormick, has for months been planning for the big day in conjunction with the sponsoring comP “We think we have done everything to cater for the larger-than-usual crowd expected to see the Preux Chevalier-Roydon Glen clash with other top horses, in the Cup,” said Mr McCormick. “The resiting of some totalisator windows is expected to overcome isolated spots which became congested last year and with just a little luck we feel we should be able to handle well over $2 million should that amount be on offer,” he added. The inclusion of horses from places as far apart as Auckland and Invercargill would ensure that there was New Zealand-wide interest in the meeting, but he felt

that it was the visit by Preux Chevalier with a career studded with worldclass performances that was the focal point, said Mr McCormick.

“I don’t think we could have attracted a more glamorous horse to oppose the best open-class pacers we have in New Zealand in what must surely be one of the greatest tests for pacers anywhere in the world,” he added. The club’s major sponsor, Toyota New Zealand, Ltd, is taking a keen interest in the promotion of Cup day. The company’s franchise-holders in the South Island are being brought to the meeting and it is expected that they will have about 600 guests at today’s running of the Cup. They plan to entertain them in two marquees. Arrangements have also been made for television sets to be installed at all of their outlets outside Christchurch so that clients can watch the running of the Cup. Toyota and the T.A.B. are running a special promotion

whereby T.A.B. patrons with losing trifecta tickets on the Cup will be put into a draw for a new Corolla liftback car. The draw for the new car will be carried live on television on the final night of the carnival on Saturday, November 23. Interest in today’s meeting will centre on the Cup, but the supporting events should provide racing of the high standard usually associated with Addington. Three-year-olds will have their last chance of qualifying for a start in the $125,000 final on Friday when they compete in a heat of the Fay Richwhite Sires’ Stakes over one mile, while the top trotters will be hoping to find the form which will carry them to a start in the $70,000 Taubmans Dominion Handicap on the last night of the meeting. .