Brittany Graham knows a thing or two about racing on both sides of the Tasman and now that the Kiwi-based Queenslander and Trackside presenter is working in this country she’s a regular contributor on all things racing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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By Brittany Graham\u00a0<\/p>\n
A most intriguing horse will return to the racetrack in the Night \u2018N Day Winton Pace tomorrow at Central Southland Raceway (2.53pm).<\/p>\n
Hijack will make his New Zealand debut as favourite for trainer Chelsea Faithful.<\/p>\n
And “faithful” is an apt description of the young trainer\u2019s approach to the now six-year-old gelding.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has a very long story,” says Faithful.<\/p>\n
To try and make it short, the son of Courage Under Fire was bought by a stable client as a yearling at the 2021 NZB Christchurch Yearling Sale for a modest sum of $8,000.<\/p>\n
He was \u2018roach backed\u2019 (upward curve in the spine) and presented as a rig with a vet report at the time saying he had one undescended testicle.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t the most positive of signs.<\/p>\n
Despite this, he showed good promise before having some wind issues which were surgically rectified as an early three-year-old.<\/p>\n
Returning later that season, he trialed impressively for Faithful at Winton where he was soon after snapped up by leviathan owner Mick Boots.<\/p>\n
His Australian career wasn\u2019t the most fruitful when racing on five occasions in late 2024 and being beaten an average of 60 metres through bad racing manners, and sub-par performance.<\/p>\n
After not sighting Hijack for some time, Faithful spoke to selling agent Stu Valentine at the 2025 yearling sales about taking him back on for Boots.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of weeks later I received an email saying he is booked on a plane and will be back in a week!\u201d<\/p>\n
And in typical \u2018Jack\u2019 fashion, it hasn\u2019t been smooth sailing in the last 18 months either.<\/p>\n
However, when he stepped out at the workouts at Winton last week and won comprehensively, it was more about relief for his trainer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving him at the workouts made me feel sick with nerves, so I am hoping he just gets around in one piece tomorrow\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his lengthy time on the sidelines, he is proving very popular with punters firming from an opening price of $2.05 to an odds-on quote currently.<\/p>\n
Hopefully for their sake, as well as his loyal trainer and owner, he can repay them with a positive performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"24 June 2026 , Punters Info Brittany Graham knows a thing or two about racing on both sides…\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":["post-493398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493398","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=493398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493398\/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=493398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}