Draws muddy Taylor Mile picture as Alexandra Park starts huge fortnight

Swayzee, seen beating Akuta in the 2023 NZ Cup, faces a huge task on his Alexandra Park debut on Friday. Photo / Ajay Berry

One of New Zealand’s great harness racing sprints has been thrown into confusion by the barrier draw for Friday’s $100,000 Dawson Harford Taylor Mile.

The Group 1 is Alexandra Park’s biggest annual sprint race and has been won by some of New Zealand’s pacing greats: Elsu, Just An Excuse, Christen Me, Terror To Love, Auckland Reactor, Changeover and more recently, the magnificent Lazarus.

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.

Adding to the tactics chat certain 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.

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 he faces his own challenges if he is to maintain the stranglehold the best Australian pacers have held over our elite races in the last three years.

Defending champion We Walk By Faith, who is somehow only still a Rating 81 horse, gets barrier 2 in a race that will have the bookies and punters guessing.

The $100,000 Fisken and Sons Anzac Cup on Friday is not so draw-dependent, being a 2200m standing start, and features 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.

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.

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.