Can surprise gear change help Marketplace get the chocolates?

Marketplace has been our best young pacer but that title is under threat from Got The Chocolates. Photo / Ajay Berry

Marketplace has been woken up for the richest race of his career at Addington tonight.

The glamour boy of our classic pacing crop has a few dents in his crown after arch rival Got The Chocolates has beaten him in their last two clashes, once when Marketplace trailed him but more painfully when Got The Chocolates sat parked outside him at Ashburton last start.

“Got The Chocolates was awesome last start and I didn’t think he could do that,” says Marketplace’s trainer Regan Todd.

“I don’t think our horse is going any worse but Got The Chocolates has improved and the gap has closed.”

So Todd has reached for the turbo buttons by applying blinkers to Marketplace for today’s $500,000 slot race, The Velocity, as well as removing his usual earplugs.

“We think that will get him keener and we think he can handle that because he is such a laid-back horse.

“I’d like to think it will have him up and running early and keep him keen.”

While that could raise concerns for some horses about them over-racing, the reality is today’s sprint trip is likely to be run hard anyway so Marketplace will be close enough to his top end of his cruising speed for much of the race.

“It is all about the next two weeks now,” says Todd.

“This race and the Derby next week are what he has been set for and I think we have him peaking.”

As talented as Marketplace is, Got The Chocolates has gone to another level and he can still win even though he is likely to have to sit parked.

One way or the other, we should know who New Zealand’s best 3-year-old pacer is by 7.45pm tonight.

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.