By Michael Guerin
Jumal stepped into some very, very big shoes with his stunning win in the Flying Stakes at Addington on Friday night.
And it was trainer Steven Reid who put him in them with a quote that is set to follow the freakish three-year-old everywhere he goes for the next season or two.
But before we dissect the words, there was the race.
The $100,000 Group 1 sponsored by Braxton Farriers may not have given the $1.25 punters the experience they wanted early when Jumal was out of the early burn but then typically driver Blair Orange moved at exactly the right time to sit parked outside a softened up Franco Lomu at the bell.
From there Orange controlled the race and once he asked Jumal to get serious he left our other best three-year-olds standing, bolting clear to win like the budding champion he may be, with Sonofamistery and Franco Lomu excellent in the supporting roles.
But Jumal appears to have next month’s NZ Derby at his mercy and is already good enough to be an open class force, even though you’d love to see him grow a few inches between now and next year’s New Zealand Cup.
He is, as we all already, the real deal. A special horse.
Trainer Reid, never scared to speak his mind, then dropped one of the quotes of the harness racing year when he said Jumal is now the best horse he has trained.
“My friends have been wanting me to say it and I think now I can say it, he is the best I have had,” said Reid.
Reid looked sober so we can presume he hadn’t been drinking but comparing Jumal to Monkey King at this stage, considering the latter’s incredible body of work, is a GIANT call.
But the quote deserves some context.
Anybody who has owned or trained a winner knows on racenight the adrenalin is amazing and the world, Jumal’s world in this case, seems almost perfect.
And to be honest Jumal’s record would suggest he is a better, more advanced age group horse than Monkey King, which is the sort of extra words you can often forget to add in under the pressure of live television.
And, this is the one many people may forget, is that while Monkey King is a modern day great who won two New Zealand Cups and a Miracle Mile, he was actually trained for at least half of his open class career by Brendon Hill, including one of those NZ Cups and that Miracle Mile.
So Reid, who loved Monkey King, might just have been thinking of the part of the great pacer’s career that he was the trainer for.
But there is one other, almost daunting, terribly exciting possibility.
Maybe Jumal is actually better than Monkey King and the best horse Reid has trained.
Ever. No context needed. Just the best.
He has a long way to go to prove that but Reid has earned the right to say whatever he wants because for decades now he has proven he can find and then train elite harness horses to win great races.
And if what Steven Reid said about Jumal on October 9, 2026 turns out to be true, then he is the pacer New Zealand harness racing fans have been waiting for.