Punters Info<\/a><\/p>\nBy Michael Guerin<\/p>\n
One of New Zealand\u2019s great harness racing sprints has been thrown into confusion by the barrier draw for Friday\u2019s $100,000 Dawson Harford Taylor Mile.<\/p>\n
The Group 1 is Alexandra Park\u2019s biggest annual sprint race and has been won by some of New Zealand\u2019s pacing greats: Elsu, Just An Excuse, Christen Me, Terror To Love, Auckland Reactor, Changeover and more recently the magnificent Lazarus.<\/p>\n
But there will be nothing so cut and dried about the Taylor Mile this Friday after pre-draw favourite Swayzee drew barrier 8, Got The Chocolates one on the second line and past winner Akuta two on the second line.<\/p>\n
Adding to the tactics chat between now and Friday is fast beginner Sooner The Bettor drawing to lead from barrier 3 but with new kid on the block The Lazarus Effect right next to him at barrier 4.<\/p>\n
While Swayzee is the best performed of the 10 starters a mile has rarely been his favourite distance and he is making his right-handed debut so faces his own challenges if he is to maintain the stranglehold the best Australian pacers have over our elite races in the last three years.<\/p>\n
Defending champion We Walk By Faith, who is some how only still a Rating 81 horse, gets barrier two in a race that will have the bookies and punters guessing.<\/p>\n
The $100,000 Fisken and Sons Anzac Cup on Friday is not so draw dependent being a 2200m standing start and sees Higher Power stepping up to open class to join his now established stablemate Meant To Be at the highest level in a race where manners could decide the winner.<\/p>\n
Unbeaten trotting filly Our Col heads the $75,000 NZBS Harness Million Trot fresh off her national record at Cambridge while the meeting also hosts two $35,000 Metro Finals on one of the strongest Alexandra Park support cards of the season.<\/p>\n
To see the Auckland fields click here<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"21 April 2026 , Punters Info By Michael Guerin One of New Zealand\u2019s great harness racing sprints has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-389810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389810","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=389810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389810\/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=389810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}