Surprising entries at Te Aroha’s return to racing: Pier and Helena Baby

Pier was last season’s 2000 Guineas winner. Photo / Trish Dunell

Te Aroha’s return to racing comes with a couple of genuine “what are you doing in this race” horses today.

The rebuilt track will host three hurdle races and one steeplechase as well as the Te Aroha Cup after a false start with its original return to racing earlier this year.

Te Aroha was reconstructed and after the delays which often seem to accompany these things it hosted racing again before grass disease saw it sidelined again.

It has now been deemed ready and all going well Te Aroha host the Pakuranga Hunt meeting on September 1 as its biggest fixture of the year, leading into the Great Northern meeting at Te Rapa two weeks later.

Te Aroha was originally touted as the new home of northern jumps racing, including the Great Northern carnival, but New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) operations manager Darin Balcombe says Te Rapa is confirmed as the home of the Great Northern for this year and Te Aroha will have to prove itself after the setbacks before it will be considered to host the Northerns.

Today’s meeting sees a mixture of both jumps and some decent flat racing including an unexpected appearance from last season’s 2000 Guineas winner Pier.

He has only raced five times since beating Desert Lightning and Prowess in the Guineas at Riccarton, his latest and longest break coming after co-trainer Darryn Weatherley eased up on him because of a slight cannon bone issue.

“He has had a long break but we didn’t want to leave him out all winter because that would have meant he went a year without racing,” says Weatherley.

“He will probably only have this run and then another break but he trialled well recently so he is ready to go.”

How does Weatherley expects his classic winner to go at Te Aroha on a Monday afternoon in winter?

“I am not going to say I will be disappointed if he gets beat because he has been away from the track for so long, but the way he trialled I think he will go very well.”

So too do the TAB bookmakers with Pier rated a $2.50 in race 8, which he gets into with a luxury weight of 56kg and a seemingly ideal barrier 5.

While his name instantly catches the eye when scanning today’s fields so too does Helena Baby in race two, the second of the two maiden hurdles to start the day.

While good open-class gallopers transitioning to hurdling is nothing new, it is extremely rare these days to see a horse who stretched the great Melody Belle in a Group 1 Tarzino Trophy, albeit in 2019, racing over the sticks.

Helena Baby has covered plenty of ground since those glory days five years ago, including a fruitless stint in Hong Kong and winning his second Ōpunake Cup in 2022.

He won his hurdle trial at Cambridge last week by a casual 20 lengths, having won his first hurdle trial last season but never racing over the jumps then, trainer John Bell waiting for the right time to step him up.

Winning fresh up over hurdles over 3100m will be no easy feat, but Helena Baby does have an enormous natural speed edge over his rivals.

While his rivals are maidens one who may not be for long is Manuka (R2, No.6) who is still working out the jumping game but has shown enough to suggest he will win races for trainer Dan O’Leary.

O’Leary also has former Great Northern Steeplechase winner Te Kahu (R1, No.2) in the first maiden hurdle and after he was a brave second in his first start in two years last Sunday he could be a jumper to follow this winter.

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.