For example, the $1.5milion Karaka Millions Three-Year-Old doesn’t have early nominations so if you back favourite Savaglee at his current $2.80 price and he isn’t actually nominated on the Tuesday before the race, you get your Futures bet refunded by the TAB.
But things get slightly more tricky in races with late entry clauses, as a market could have been live for a month or two then new horses join it a week out and change everything, as Swayzee did eight days before winning the New Zealand Trotting Cup in November.
There is, of course, nothing the TAB can do about that. They can only frame markets on the horses nominated, but it does raise questions over why we have late penalty fee nominations at all when it is often cheap, or free, to nominate at the first cut-off date.
Dixon says there is a simple reason he didn’t nominate Marotiri Molly when the Thorndon entries first closed.
“Back then I didn’t think she was a 1600m horse and I wasn’t sure she was really a Group 1 mare yet,” he told the Herald.
Since then Marotiri Molly has finished third, beaten less than a neck by La Crique, in the Auckland Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes and then bolted away with the Manawatū Challenge Stakes.
“She has gone so well in those last two races and she loves Trentham so we had to look at this race.
“Her winning stake was $86,000 last start, so her owners are happy to pay the late entry fee.
“So she is definitely starting and I will ring the Racing Bureau [on Monday] to confirm that.”
Marotiri Molly would be a rarity in a Group 1 being the only racehorse Dixon has had in work recently.
“I usually only have six to eight horses in work anyway but with my kids being here over the holidays and a few horses having a break, she has been the only horse I have had in work in the last couple of weeks.”
While Wellington’s weather can make futures betting on Trentham feature a frustrating experience, the beauty of Marotiri Molly is the daughter of Per Incanto is proven in all conditions.
She won the Challenge Stakes last start on a Good 4 track, yet also won at Trentham three starts ago on a Heavy 10.
Once officially nominated today Marotiri Molly will headline a Thorndon with few in-form proven Group 1 rivals, although Sharp N Smart, Aegon, One Bold Cat and the last two winners of the Thorndon in He’s A Doozy and Puntura return.
Saturday’s meeting will also host the Levin Classic, which sees the return of superstar 3-year-old colt Savaglee, as well as the Trentham Stakes and Wellesley Stakes.
The latter along with Ellerslie’s meeting on Sunday provides the juveniles with some of their last chances to qualify for the Karaka Million on January 25.
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.
