Racing: Marotiri Molly to join Thorndon Mile field despite late entry fee - Mick on Monday

Marotiri Molly winning at Trentham in December. Photo / Peter Rubery

Matt Dixon will pick up the phone today and put some much-needed certainty into the market for one of our biggest mile races.

Dixon will officially pay the $7500 late entry fee to get the only racehorse he is training at present, Marotiri Molly, into the $500,000 Harcourts Thorndon Mile at Trentham on Saturday.

The last-start winner of the Manawatū Challenge Stakes, Marotiri Molly is the $4.50 futures favourite for the Thorndon Mile but wasn’t in the original nominations, which can create interesting scenarios for punters.

Because the Thorndon is an early nominations race, there are no refunds on horses who don’t start, unlike races without early nominations in which the TAB refunds punters if their horse isn’t nominated, usually on the Tuesday before the race.

That makes it very much a case of “bettor beware” and it is wise to read the conditions above future markets to see what the rules are.

For example, the $1.5milion Karaka Millions Three-Year-Old doesn’t have early nominations so if you back favourite Savaglee at his current $2.80 price and he isn’t actually nominated on the Tuesday before the race, you get your Futures bet refunded by the TAB.

But things get slightly more tricky in races with late entry clauses, as a market could have been live for a month or two then new horses join it a week out and change everything, as Swayzee did eight days before winning the New Zealand Trotting Cup in November.

There is, of course, nothing the TAB can do about that. They can only frame markets on the horses nominated, but it does raise questions over why we have late penalty fee nominations at all when it is often cheap, or free, to nominate at the first cut-off date.

Dixon says there is a simple reason he didn’t nominate Marotiri Molly when the Thorndon entries first closed.

“Back then I didn’t think she was a 1600m horse and I wasn’t sure she was really a Group 1 mare yet,” he told the Herald.

Since then Marotiri Molly has finished third, beaten less than a neck by La Crique, in the Auckland Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes and then bolted away with the Manawatū Challenge Stakes.

“She has gone so well in those last two races and she loves Trentham so we had to look at this race.

“Her winning stake was $86,000 last start, so her owners are happy to pay the late entry fee.

“So she is definitely starting and I will ring the Racing Bureau [on Monday] to confirm that.”

Marotiri Molly would be a rarity in a Group 1 being the only racehorse Dixon has had in work recently.

“I usually only have six to eight horses in work anyway but with my kids being here over the holidays and a few horses having a break, she has been the only horse I have had in work in the last couple of weeks.”

While Wellington’s weather can make futures betting on Trentham feature a frustrating experience, the beauty of Marotiri Molly is the daughter of Per Incanto is proven in all conditions.

She won the Challenge Stakes last start on a Good 4 track, yet also won at Trentham three starts ago on a Heavy 10.

Once officially nominated today Marotiri Molly will headline a Thorndon with few in-form proven Group 1 rivals, although Sharp N Smart, Aegon, One Bold Cat and the last two winners of the Thorndon in He’s A Doozy and Puntura return.

Saturday’s meeting will also host the Levin Classic, which sees the return of superstar 3-year-old colt Savaglee, as well as the Trentham Stakes and Wellesley Stakes.

The latter along with Ellerslie’s meeting on Sunday provides the juveniles with some of their last chances to qualify for the Karaka Million on January 25.

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.