It’s halftime at tonight’s Harness Racing New Zealand’s annual awards night at Addington Raceway and so far 20 awards have been decided.<\/p>\n
A sell-out crowd of around 300 are at the awards which will culminate with the naming of the Horse of the Year just before 10pm.<\/p>\n
Among the early awards was 3YO Pacing Colt or Gelding of the year. Would it be Got the Chocolates or Marketplace after a 2025 that saw their rivalry go to a whole new level?<\/p>\n
Their head-to-heads were a highlight of the year with the judges opting for the Regan Todd-trained Marketplace, following his Group 1 win in November’s New Zealand Pacing Derby.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jumal was named 2YO Pacing Colt-Gelding after a 2025 that saw him win six from seven. His only defeat was a third behind Freeze Frame in the Woodlands Stud Sires’ Stakes 2YO Colts and Geldings Final.<\/p>\n
Top Australian pacer Kingman won 4YO Pacing Colt\/Gelding of the year after his hit and run mission across the Tasman where he won the IRT New Zealand Cup and the Group 1 Christian Cullen while the top 4YO and 5YO Trotting Entires\/Geldings were emerging star Hillbilly Blues and last year’s Reharvest Rowe Cup winner Bet N Win.<\/p>\n
The 5YO Pacing\/Entire of the Year went to Republican Party who chalked up four Group 1s in 2025 including the Auckland Cup – Invercargill Cup double for the second year running.<\/p>\n
Stablehand of the Year went to Bailey Anderson while Monika Ranger was named the junior driver with the highest strike rate (23 wins with a UDR of .2980).<\/p>\n
The best Moment of the Season, which was decided by public vote, went to Jim Curtin and his 100th win at Westport’s Patterson Park on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n
Right now it’s the Dinner Break at the awards – and here’s what’s on offer.<\/p>\n
Entree :<\/p>\n
Cold smoked salmon, with walnut, rye, lemon oil, and baby rocket
Confit thyme and garlic lamb shoulder rillettes, with mustard croute and cranberry and mint glaze<\/p>\n
Main :\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grass-fed eye fillet, potato and pumpkin gratin, roasted truss tomatoes and truffled greens
Sage roasted chicken Maryland with confit shallots, parsnip, green beans and lemon velout\u00e9<\/p>\n
Dessert :\u00a0<\/p>\n
White chocolate and raspberry torte with raspberry vincotto and chocolate soil
Frangipane seasonal fruit tart, with anglaise and almond crisp\u00a0<\/p>\n
The awards will get underway shortly and there will be updates on HRNZ’s social media channels throughout the night with a comprehensive round up on the HRNZ website at 10pm.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s halftime at tonight’s Harness Racing New Zealand’s annual awards night at Addington Raceway and so far 20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-261471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261471","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=261471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}