We even had Swayzee win the New Zealand Cup four days after racing in New South Wales in one of the great surprises in recent harness racing history, considering he wasn’t even originally nominated for the iconic race.
But while nobody could have seen some of those shocks coming for consistent influence and class, it is Victorian-based driver Sugars who has defied all logic.
He originally came to New Zealand to drive champion trotter Just Believe, trained by his wife Jess, in the $600,000 TAB Trot in April. They won.
Sugars decided to stick around for the Alexandra Park carnival in May and recorded the greatest night ever by an Australian reinsman on New Zealand soil when he won both the Auckland Cup with Better Eclipse and the Rowe Cup on Just Believe, two Group 1s in an hour.
As remarkable as that was, you could make the case Sugars was driving one champion and a very smart pacer in Better Eclipse in an Auckland Cup shorn of New Zealand’s best pacers, so maybe any one of the top drivers could have pulled off the historic double.
But that is only half of the 2024 story for the driver imaginatively nicknamed “The Candyman”.
He returned to win the Dominion at Addington in November with Just Believe, who soon afterwards needed a break because of wear-and-tear issues, but Sugars had already planned to bring Better Eclipse to Auckland so stayed on.
Plenty of northern trainers and punters are glad he did.
Away from the traditional targets, Sugars has stopped in at Methven for his first grass-track win, and at Alexandra Park reined One More Moment to win the $100,000 Group 1 Queen Of Diamonds Trot for trainer Zev Meredith and a $100,000 Golden Gait Final on Jolimont for trainer Arna Donnelly, trainers and horses who couldn’t have been on his radar just a few month ago.
Sugars has been so popular and successful during his extended stay, he sits seventh on the New Zealand driving premiership for money won this year, his $1,192,268 in stakes coming from 10 wins in just 57 drives.
“It has been an amazing ride and a real surprise to get this much support from the local trainers,” says Sugars, who has five outside drives on Auckland Cup night tomorrow.
He admits it has not all been plain sailing, with Alexandra Park’s right-handed circuit taking some getting used to.
“When I drove here last year, I felt a bit lost at times, but I am far more used to it now,” he says.
“But it is still not as comfortable as driving left-handed for me.”
With the Auckland Cup returning from May to the New Year’s Eve date, Sugars and Better Eclipse get the opportunity to win it twice in the same year. But take two will be more challenging that the first time around.
“It is a bigger field and a better one, and if I am being honest, he probably isn’t as good as Merlin or Don’t Stop Dreaming at their best.
“But if we can step away and have more luck than them, then we could cause an upset.”
Just Believe would have been at Alexandra Park for the National Trot tomorrow but has returned home for a rest and tests as wear-and-tear has started to catch up with his well-travelled legs.
“He is having three months off so I doubt we will have him back here for the TAB Trot [April 4], but hopefully he will be back for the Interdoms in July.”
Better Eclipse is rated the $9 fourth favourite to complete his rare same-year Cup double, with Merlin the $2.30 favourite for tomorrow’s Group 1 at 7.17pm.
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.
