Horse racing: Regan Todd confident in Mo’Unga for Omakau Free-For-All race

Mo’unga/ Credit: Race Images.

Regan Todd has a warning for those drawn inside his open class star Mo’Unga in today’s $40,000 Ranfurly Transport Free-For-All at Omakau.

“We are not going down there for a holiday,” says the Canterbury trainer.

There is no hint of arrogance in Todd’s comments, more a declaration of his confidence in Mo’Unga who was one of our major movers in the open class ranks in 2024.

The long-striding pacer put a series of good performances together including a sixth in the New Zealand Cup and won the Summer Cup at Addington before having no luck in the Invercargill Cup last start.

Todd was even toying with the idea of sending Mo’Unga north for the Auckland Cup on Tuesday but is happy he decided to head south instead.

“It looks a really good race for him,” he says.

“It is only a small field and a good stake,” says Todd.

“I will be leaving at 3am on New Year’s Day and he is the only horse I am taking down.

“I am not driving all that way for a holiday, so while small fields can be tricky he will be put into the race.

“It is his last race before I give him a spell and then the plan is to take him to Auckland in March and April with [champion juvenile] Marketplace.

“Because he is heading to the paddock after this he can afford to have a hard run so I will be happy to see him go forward and good luck to anybody who wants to park him.”

The Omakau track is quite flat but Todd says even though Mo’Unga wears spreaders to keep his front knees from hitting each other when cornering at speed, he doesn’t think the track will be an issue today.

“He came wide at Ascot Park last start and never missed a beat so I think he will be fine.”

The two obvious dangers to Mo’Unga are Pinseeker and Da Vinci, who both finished just in front of him when better placed in the handicaps in the Invercargill Cup.

Pinseeker has since won the Gore Cup on December 27 off a 20m handicap, albeit in an easier field, and if he leads he will take huge beating.

The same applies to Da Vinci so the early tactics will be crucial but the TAB were firmly in Mo’unga’s camp, opening him the $1.55 favourite.

The market is not so decisive for the open class trot also over the 2000m mobile.

Mystic Max is the best performed of the eight starters but he faces a second-line draw up against familiar for Midnight Dash and Gold Bullion, back from a successful one-race raid to Alexandra Park.

Add in open-class regulars Midnight Dash and One Over All and it is a race where early pressure could undo the leaders and that would make Mystic Max the most logical winner.

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.