Harness racing's pin up boy Lazarus will not be starting in this years Jewels, to be held at Ashburton raceway on the 3rd June 2017.

 

Lazarus's connections have advised Richard Wilson the NZRB harness racing bookmaker that the horse will be withdrawn in the next 48 hours.

 

Part owner Trevor Casey says "Lazarus will be withdrawn as he will be going out for a spell after competing in the Dawson Harford & Partners NZ Messenger on the 28th April". Trevor also said "Lazarus has a tough season coming up and will be spelling to prepare for his major targets including a defense of the New Zealand Trotting Cup in November."

 

Richard Wilson said "from day one when we were looking to open the 3 and 4 year old 'Future' markets we knew that Lazarus would be a dominating Harness Jewels favourite in many of our customer's multi bets and we wanted to be sure that connections were 100% confident that he was targeting the race and was not going to be spelled after the Messenger.

 

We were advised by connections that it was 99.9% certain that he would not be starting in the Jewels and it was for that reason and in the best interest of our customers that we decided that we could not include Lazarus in the market due to the sensitive information that was supplied to us regarding his racing schedule, which at that time our punting customers were not privy to.

 

Connections also agreed with the stance that was taken in this regard as they also felt it was imperative to be doing the right thing by Lazarus's band of loyal punting followers".

 

Vincent the Diamond Creek NZ Derby winner who was the $2.00 three year old Diamond favourite has also been deleted from that market as connections are targeting the 3 year old Breeders Crown race in Victoria. Unfortunately for our customers Vincent as was expected was easily the best backed horse in early multi betting.

 

Option 981 Ruby 3 year old trotters – BD Khaosan $31 is best backed over War Machine $51. Best backed in multi betting easily is the $1.90 favourite Enghien.
 

Option 977 Diamond 3 year old fillies – Bonnie Joan $41 – $9.00 with partyon $1.85 – $2.40 the dominating multi horse.
 

Option 979 Emerald 3 year old colts & geldings – Emon Maguire $35 – $31 leads win betting over Tiger Thompson $23.
 

Option 987 Ruby 4 year old trot – this market is currently suspended as we have been advised that Marcoola $1.65 is currently under an injury cloud and 

could be a doubful starter.

 

Option 983 Diamond 4 year old mares – Dream About Me the $1.35 opening favourite was withdrawn from the market on Tuesday 11th April at 5:00pm. The new favourite is now Piccadilly Princess $2.20 – $1.80 over Golden Goddess $12 – $4.40 & Arden's Choice $24 – $4.50 with the 4th favourite American Tart $41 – $18. The first three favourites are the only runners that have been backed and luckily for those punters they were backed prior to the favourite been withdrawn so the odds they received are what will be paid out if they win as it is a 'Futures' market and as such receives no deductions when horse's are withdrawn.  

       

Richard Wilson has also advised that in the next seven days the 2 year Futures Jewels betting will be open to bet into.