Racing: Dismal Kiwis need a rescue team

If anybody in New Zealand is reading this, please send the rescue team immediately.

Because it appears an undisclosed number of hapless New Zealand harness racing industry participants are trapped in some weird Bermuda triangle situation on the outskirts of Melbourne.

Champion horsemen and equines of excellence have been venturing to the Victorian capital for the past two months and while they look and sound the same as they do in the natural environment, something scary is happening to them.

For reasons with no scientific basis they have lost the ability to win races.

Not just big races, any races.

The horses are still shiny and pretty and the local inhabitants, in blind acts of faith, are supporting them on their TAB. But these Kiwis definitely can't fly.

The origins of the troubling phenomenon date back to Sydney in November, when a small but select force of New Zealand pacing talent arrived as heroes and left with zeroes.

Habitual winners like Elsu, Roman Gladiator and Mister D G could not even run a place in the Miracle Mile and struggled in the Treuer Memorial.

The dark cloud then moved south to Melbourne where in the last eight weeks the crème of New Zealand harness racing have got, well, creamed.

Lyell Creek, Just An Excuse, Allegro Agitato, Mister D G (again), Baileys Dream, Badlands Bute, Harnetts Creek, Lanson, Tribute, Fake Denario and Young Rufus have all been stricken.

They arrive, they race, they suck.

Champion three-year-old Baileys Dream arrived and didn't even race. He must have known something was wrong. Intelligent horse.

Young Rufus has been the only bright spot during our countrys harness racing summer of discontent, having won the South Australia Cup.

But that was in Adelaide, to where this form-gobbling vacuum has obviously not spread. Considering Adelaide has only one good racenight a year, this is not overly comforting news.

The Kiwis-can't-fly phenomonen was at its most acute on Saturday night when Australian pacers Emmas Only and Sir Galvinator quinellaed the Victoria Derby, with Tribute's third the best of the New Zealand trio in the race.

To understand how strange that is you have to understand the Victoria Derby. New Zealand-trained horses had won eight of the last 10 Derbys.

It is a non-contest, so much so there was talk of actually holding the Victoria Derby at Addington to save everybody the airfares.

But not on Saturday. Emmas Only came from the trail, used the passing lane and gave driver Kerryn Gath her first Victoria Derby.

Yep, that is how stricken the disorientated New Zealanders have become. They are losing the Victoria Derby to an over-achieving pacer of slightly above average ability driven by a female.

Now that is being sexist, because Gath is a superb driver, but if you went looking for another female driver who has won a group one Derby winner anywhere in the world you would come up with a grand total of none.

So Australians are now making history simply to continue the torture of their transtasman cousins.

It wasn't just the Derby where the problem was evident.

New Zealand used to dominate the Australasian Trotting Championships with megastars like David Moss, Pride Of Petite, Buster Hanover and Lyell Creek.

On Saturday night we had one trotter in the series, Lanson. She galloped and finished last.

Even Harnetts Creek, good enough to finish fifth in the New Zealand and Auckland Cups couldn't win a weak A$25,000 race after hitting the lead at the top of the straight.

The Kiwi raiders this summer have become so impotent they would need to swallow Viagra tablets the size of frisbees to fix the problem.

Now harness racing adminstrators, realising the dire situation of their faithful, are sending harness racing's king to try to break the evil spell.

His name is Elsu and he arrives in Melbourne today.

Fresh from a beautiful win at Alexandra Park he will try to provide redemption in the A$450,000 Hunter Cup on Saturday night.

The best will be saved for last. Unfortunately he faces a 20m backmark in the world's hardest pacing handicap.

He will need a miracle, as will all the dazed Kiwis at Moonee Valley.

Because there are a few things worse in life than being a New Zealander on a racetrack with 8000 wise-cracking Australians after a disastrous Derby night.

One of those is being on the same track with 18,000 of them if we get our butts kicked in the Hunter Cup on Saturday night.

If that happens we will all be looking for that rescue team.

Derby disaster

* New Zealand horses have a horror night at Moonee Valley.

* Tribute is the best of the Kiwis in the Victoria Derby, finishing third behind Emmas Only.

* New Zealand horses could only run placings in the other major races.

* It was the first time since 1990 at least one New Zealand-trained horse hasnt won on Derby night.