The running of the Raukawa Cup for the first time at the Ōtaki-Māori Racing Club’s annual Matariki meeting on Friday saw a local horse get the spoils.
Weneedashock is trained at Ōtaki by Howie Mathews who has a knack of winning races on his home track.
Otaki Māori Racing CEO Ben Jamison said it was always good to see a local horse win to have the Raukawa Cup, which this year was run at the Matariki meeting. The race is normally held later in the year.
“We’ve been planning this for a while and to see how the races have stacked up, and it’s one of the highest amount of nominations - 181 in total - for this day ever,” he said.
“We originally had an eight-race programme, but decided to add two more due to the large amount of nominations.