This is not supposed to be how it works. Queensland does a lot of things well; producing great trotters isn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n
Actually, producing trotters at all isn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n
The Sunshine State\u2019s harness racing industry is very much pacing-based and trotting plays a minor role there, more substantial than a decade or two ago when it was pure novelty value, but small-time stuff nevertheless.<\/p>\n
Queensland had a really good trotter called Our Overanova a few years ago but the state has never had a real Grand Circuit trotting regular and never a conqueror.<\/p>\n
Not until today and nothing like today.<\/p>\n
Gus was actually bred and educated in New Zealand by Southland trainer Nathan Williamson, for who he has two starts for one huge win before being sold to Queensland.<\/p>\n
He has given husband and wife team Chantal Turpin and Pete McMullen plenty of headaches since but he has now also given them the greatest win of their careers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brought him over here thinking if he paid for himself it would be great,\u201d McMullen, one of the stars of Queensland harness racing driving where he is known as \u201cLeader Peter\u201d for his freewheeling style, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew how fast he was but we also realised how big the challenge was.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I let him go, he got around them quickly but he never came off the bit and was very strong to the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a huge thrill for us, you don\u2019t realise how big today is until you come here and it is something special to pull off a win like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
McMullen says Gus is likely to back up in the $100,000 Azap New Zealand Trotting Free-For-All on Friday, providing he comes through today\u2019s win well, and it is hard to believe he won\u2019t because he simply won so easily.<\/p>\n
Mr Love added a Dominion second to his Rowe Cup runner-up prize and was very brave, while Oscar Bonavena and favourite Jilliby Ballerini headlined the hard-luck stories alongside Mighty Logan.<\/p>\n
Oscar got trapped back in the field, always a risk for a horse usually driven for one run, and locked wheels at the top of the straight before storming into third.<\/p>\n
For all the concerns about her manners, the favourite Jilliby Ballerini was majestic early on and got the perfect trail behind fellow Victorian in Arcee Phoenix but he surprisingly punctured when Gus strode past him at the 600m mark and took Jilliby Ballerini\u2019s hopes with him.<\/p>\n
She made good ground and confirmed she is well and truly up to this grade and her future looks bright, even if today will feel like the one that got away.<\/p>\n
Mighty Logan suffered a similar fate while most of those involved in the early burns paid the price in another brutal race on harness racing\u2019s glamour day.<\/p>\n
But this Dominion belonged to Gus on the biggest day in Queensland trotting history. <\/p>\n
Almost sounds like a movie.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world\u2019s biggest horse racing carnivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is not supposed to be how it works. Queensland does a lot of things well; producing great…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[89693,38388,57100,17751,89690,12705,15312,57026,89689,78,4505,117,111,43,139,69,11115,3512,38885,89692,5911,89691,8982,2963],"class_list":["post-129638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-89693","tag-addington","tag-cool","tag-dominion","tag-fairytale","tag-farms","tag-greatest","tag-gus","tag-harness","tag-in","tag-moment","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-produces","tag-racing","tag-renwick","tag-runnings","tag-tonight","tag-trot","tag-victory","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}