{"id":607165,"date":"2026-09-21T13:46:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607165\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T13:46:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:46:23","slug":"minor-setback-for-unbeaten-trotter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607165\/","title":{"rendered":"Minor setback for unbeaten trotter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Eyes-Wide-Open-blog-Blair-Orange-addington__ResizedImageWzYwMCwzNDdd.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"347\" class=\"ss-htmleditorfield-file image\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>By Michael Guerin<\/p>\n<p>Unbeaten juvenile trotter Eyes Wide Open will miss this Friday\u2019s $50,000 Sundon Classic at Addington.<\/p>\n<p>But co-trainer Hayden Cullen says the Harness Million futures favourite is still on track for that rich goal back at Addington on October 9.<\/p>\n<p>Eyes Wide Open has been excellent in both his wins for Cullen and wife Amanda and was expected to meet top northern trotting baby Duke of Bourbon at Addington this Friday. Until he bumped a leg in track work on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is nothing serious and we still could have got him to Friday\u2019s race but he would only have been at 90 per cent and we didn\u2019t want to take that risk with him,\u201d says Cullen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he is fine, it won\u2019t be an issue long-term and he will still definitely be there for the Million on October 9 and the Sires\u2019 Stakes after that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eyes Wide Open may not be at Addington this Friday but plenty of other stars will be as not only does Jumal return in the Wai Eyre Farm Lazarus Stakes but Marketplace and Republican Party start their road to the Go Media New Zealand Cup in the Chairmans Handicap Pace, the open class feature.<\/p>\n<p>Marketplace will face a 10m handicap, the same as It\u2019s Tough, while reigning Horse of the Year Republican Party will be off 20m.<\/p>\n<p>And the Tactical Approach DG Jones Banks Peninsula Trotting Cup comes to Addington with the majority of the south\u2019s best trotters in the entries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Michael Guerin Unbeaten juvenile trotter Eyes Wide Open will miss this Friday\u2019s $50,000 Sundon Classic at Addington.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-607165","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\/607165","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=607165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}