N.Z. Breeder Tries National Horseplayers Championship

While Trish Dunell will be the first to tell you she's a bit of a fish out of water in this year's NTRA National Horseplayers Championship, the New Zealand resident will take her shot in the handicapping contest that will award $800,000 to the first-place finisher.

From Auckland, New Zealand, NHC officials believe Dunall has made the longest journey to Bally's in Las Vegas to compete in the nearly $3 million tournament that runs Feb. 7 through Feb. 9. Dunell landed a spot in the NHC, which has seen nearly 700 entries this season, by winning a race series contest in New Zealand that included Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing. 

"The last race was a trotting race ... straight up trotters," Dunell said. "My son had seen this horse that he liked a lot so I basically put everything I had to place on this horse and I hit it with $2,000 on it."

Making that stand would lead her to win the tournament by $800. 

Place bets in New Zealand are basically the equivalent of a place-show bet in the United States. NHC officials helped explain that difference to Dunell Friday morning before the tournament started—an important detail as contest results are based on mythical $2 win-place bets.

Early morning Friday brought more bad news as contest tracks Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots and Gulfstream Park announced they'd moved scheduled turf races to the dirt because of wet weather. Most of Dunell's Thoroughbred handicapping experience is on turf races.

"I'm at a huge disadvantage," Dunell said, noting that even reading past performances will be a challenge as she familiarizes herself with the shorthand that, for perhaps all of the other players, is regular reading.

That said, Dunell certainly knows Thoroughbreds. She's the breeder of Spalato, a two-time champion in Singapore. An Elusive City—Ellington (by Express Duke) gelding, Spalato was named champion 4-year-old in Singapore in 2014 when he won the listed Emirates Singapore Derby and champion all-weather horse there in 2016. 

Bred by Dunell and owned by her husband Graham Christopher MacKie, Spalato earned more than US$1.29 million in his three seasons of racing—winning 10 of 17 starts. In 2016 he was ranked 74th on the Longines World's Best Racehorse rankings, where he earned the top rating for a horse racing on an all-weather surface.

Dunell keeps her mares at The Oaks Stud in New Zealand, near Cambridge, N.Z. in the heart of the country's breeding region. She hopes there will be a situation where she can put that horse knowledge to work, but even if the contest doesn't go well, she's enjoying the trip. She said her top goals are to have fun and to not get too stressed.

"Making sure I don't miss a race is probably my biggest goal," Dunell said.