The Messenger has long been the gateway to pacing greatness but for Mount Gambier husband and wife team Des & Heather Glynn who own and bred Majestic Cruiser, the 2022 version was something else.
It was a reminder of what Australasian harness racing has been missing and what it can be again.
The best version of pacing is when the big boys and girls, often with different form lines, get together and won’t back down.
Add an Aussie or two and things get really spicey.
That sums up the $100,000 Dawson Harford Messenger won by Majestic Cruiser on Friday.
Glynn admits to being ‘fairly lucky’ in his 50 year involvement with harness racing.
“I’ve always managed to have a handy horse,” the owner of horse-of-the-moment, Majestic Cruiser, who recently captured the New Zealand Messager Stakes after a close second in New Zealand first ever slot race, Glynn told Peter Wharton.
A dairy farmer and hobby breeder, Glynn tasted his first success with the Greenwald gelding Green Fire at Murray Bridge on August 27, 1978.
“I raced him on lease and he won four races for me,” Des said.
Just on the immediate future of Majestic Cruiser will now return home, missing the standing start Auckland Cup and he takes the NZ 2700m mobile record with him after all that pressure saw them stop the clock at 3:13.1, clipping 0.7 of a second off Christen Me’s mark.
