Harness racing: Can Got The Chocolates get the Derby and clinch 3-year-old supremacy?

Got The Chocolates and a jubilant John Dunn outstayed Marketplace in the $500,000 Velocity last Friday. Photo / Ajay Berry

Driver John Dunn blames himself for the one glaring anomaly in harness racing’s hottest arch-rivalry.

Dunn drives Got The Chocolates, the hot favourite for tonight’s $300,000 Garrards New Zealand Derby at Addington, even though he is up against Marketplace, who has been considered superior for much of the last year.

That has changed in their last three clashes and Got The Chocolates landed the killer blow in their personal battle when he sat outside Marketplace and crunched him in the $500,000 Velocity slot race last Friday.

That brings their personal score card to 9-9 after 18 clashes and for over a year when they have met, if Got The Chocolates hasn’t won, he has finished second.

With one jarring exception.

That was in the Northern Derby at Alexandra Park in April, the only other time the pair have met over a staying distance like tonight’s 2600m mobile.

Marketplace bolted away with that Derby while Got The Chocolates dropped out to finish seventh, but Dunn says that isn’t indicative of what to expect tonight.

“That was my fault in the Northern Derby,” he said.

“I had a crack for the lead early and kept going way too long and he wouldn’t come back to me, so he undid himself.

“But that won’t be happening this week and I think he will love the distance.”

The big question tonight will be whether, if Marketplace leads as expected, driver Craig Ferguson chooses to hand that role to Got The Chocolates and try to beat him for speed, rather than stay in front and have the favourite hammering him over the the last 800m.

Got The Chocolates has to be the favourite after their results this spring but they should probably be closer in the market than $1.40 versus $2.60 when you consider their overall records.

Dunn finds himself in another seemingly two-horse race in tonight’s New Zealand Trotting Oaks, with Ya Rite Darl drawn in two, alongside last Friday’s Ascent slot race winner Tracy The Jet.

“The draw looks good because if we can’t lead then we should be able to trail her,” Dunn said.

“My filly was jogging when she galloped last week and I think she can push Tracy The Jet very close.”

The stable’s Nevele R. Fillies Series Final winner from last week, Celestial Sea, faces another second-line draw in the Garrards New Zealand Oaks, which is a deep and even classic where any one of six or eight fillies could win, depending on tempo or luck.

“She had a tough draw last week but it worked out well whereas it is hard to work out what sort of run she will get this time,” Dunn said.

“She can win again but it won’t be easy.”

Team Dunn can start the night with a feature-race win as Petite Armour starts odds-on in the Touchdown Car Rentals Trot for 2-year-old fillies.

“It took a really nice horse to beat her last week and he isn’t here this time so she deserves to be favourite.”

I Dream Of Jeannie (Race 4, No 14) gives the stable a double-figure value bet in the mares’ trot, while Dunn says Scrunch (R12, No 3) is one of his better chances of the packed night in the last race.

“And we have It’s Tough in the Christian Cullen and he is flying but we couldn’t have expected the field to come up like this, with Kingman and a few other open-class horses, so he is really up against it.”

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’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.