Dream comes true as Dickies take $150k Rowe Cup
John Dickie’s lifelong racing dream came true at Alexandra Park last night.
Dickie, born into one of New Zealand’s great trotting training families, finally trained the winner of the north’s biggest trotting race when Speeding Spur won the $150,000 Rowe Cup, almost certainly sealing NZ Trotter of the Year in the process.
“I reckon I have been watching this race since I was a kid, maybe as an 8-year-old, and this is the one I have always wanted to win.
“It means so much to me. My father Ivan trained so many trotters and got me into the industry and right now I am thinking about my mother Gwen and what this will mean to her.
“It was my parents, and owners like Basil Blackwell, who gave me my start and believed in me so it means so much to get our biggest trot.
“So it is very, very special to us and even better that Josh [Dickie’s son] drove him.”
Josh couldn’t have performed his duties any more perfectly as he worked Speeding Spur to the lead then chose to hand up to favourite Enghien, a move that would have opened him up to criticism had it backfired.
Instead it was the winning of the race as the now 6-year-old Speeding Spur recorded his seventh group one win, a tally that could have been so much higher but for two major injury setbacks.
He wasn’t the only trotting star on show last night as Winterfell overcame his own lack of experience to win the $100,000 Northern Trotting Derby in the style of a future open class star.
His trainers the All Stars had another massive night with new recruit Eamon Maguire using his gate speed to secure the lead, then trail and grab a brave Star Galleria on the line in the $100,000 Messenger Pace.
But it was another stablemate in Kayla Marie who produced the pacing performance of the night, overcoming a second line draw and racing off the markers throughout to win the $150,000 Sires’ Stakes Championship in national record time. That was lucrative compensation for her connections after their best filly Princess Tiffany was scratched from last night’s race after a shock incident getting a nail lodged in her hoof when winning at Alexandra Park last Friday.