Racing: The Orange Agent too swift

The Orange Agent scores in 1:51.1 on Saturday. Photo / Race Images

The Orange Agent's biggest fan isn't sure whether her supersonic times reflect how special she is or how far harness racing has come.

However, trainer Brian Hughes is going to give his 3-year-old pacing heroine a few more chances to remind us just what a great filly she is.

The northern filly produced an extraordinary performance to pace a 1:51.1 mile in freezing conditions at Jewels Day on Saturday, staving off consistent pressure to kick clear of dual Oaks winner Fight For Glory.

The Orange Agent's time was a full second inside the national record Venus Serena set last season and the ease of her win and the conditions indicate she could have paced close to a 1:50 mile on Saturday, a time harness racing purists will understandably have problems getting their heads around.

That sort of time is seconds quicker over the mile than champion fillies like De Lovely, Carabella, Mainland Banner and the seemingly incomparable Adore Me, while it places The Orange Agent a good 100m ahead of the best fillies of a decade or two ago.

The understated Hughes trained some of those great fillies of the past like Iman and Paula Michelle and admits he doesn't know what to make of how much faster The Orange Agent can pace than they did.

"I know it is a cliche but it is hard to compare horses from different eras so I am not saying she is better than them just because her times are so much faster," says Hughes.

"A lot of things have changed. Our tracks, sulkies, the way we race and the whole breed.

"But a time like that on a day like this tells us she is pretty good."

The Orange Agent is likely to take her high cruising speed to the Breeders Crown in Victoria come August, especially as the extension to her season means she would miss only one group one mares' race at home pre-Christmas, if at all.

A Queensland campaign hasn't been totally ruled out but Hughes wants to look at the big picture as she is already good enough to be a top mare in the seasons to come.

Her record-smashing scoot around Ashburton is in stark contrast to how she ended last season, galloping out in a feature race at Alexandra Park.

"She was always a tricky horse to train but she has calmed right down and is now very laid back," says Hughes.

"And plenty of the credit for that goes to Maurice [McKendry, driver] for how he has looked after her in her races and trials."

The Hughes and McKendry partnership goes back decades, with the pair having been the early combination behind one of New Zealand's greatest pacers in Chokin before he was sold.

Back then Chokin stunned clock watchers in this part of the world by pacing a 1:56.5 mile as a juvenile.

To understand how much harness racing has changed: the time The Orange Agent paced on Saturday would have seen her beat Chokin's 1991 clocking by 60m.