There was drama earlier than, throughout and after Simply An Excuse’s win in 2024.
Earlier than the nice race the defending harness racing champion was removed from wholesome. He had jarring up points, was off his meals and his lead-up type didn’t look promising.
In the course of the race he needed to deal with beginning off the again mark of 10 metres in opposition to a subject that included hotshots Elsu and Mister D G.
After which after the race co-breeder Ollie Haines realized that his good pal Graham Higgins had died within the stand close by.
It was emotional on various ranges.
In 2004 Simply An Excuse wasn’t only a New Zealand Cup winner – the horse, often known as “Lordie”, was a two time winner. He went on to say the Free For All three days later, the primary to do the double since Christian Cullen in 1998.
That win on November 9 2004 additionally gave driver Todd “The Wizard” Mitchell an unimaginable fourth win within the New Zealand Cup in six years, following on from Homin Hosed (1999), Gracious Knight (2022) after which Simply An Excuse a 12 months earlier.
All through his profession Simply An Excuse was educated by Robert Mitchell at Raglan and pushed by his son Todd.
As a weanling Simply An Excuse was thought of a legal responsibility on account of getting a membership foot.
However appearances could be deceiving and he would go to win 17 races from 39 lifetime begins and accrue over $1m.
In 2024, after having a really disrupted construct up, the defending champion went out a $7.30 third favorite behind his two extra vaunted opponents, Elsu and Mister D G. It was a two-horse race they stated.
Submit race Mitchell senior chided the media saying “I don’t know why you fellas wrote him off.”
All three began off 10m with Elsu making the primary transfer with David Butcher sweeping spherical to the lead. Simply An Excuse bided his time earlier than doing the identical and sitting parked briefly earlier than Mister D G gave him the right one-one cowl.
Turning for dwelling Elsu appeared to have the wooden on his opponents just for Simply An Excuse to peel out and put on down the pacemaker in spectacular trend, profitable by a neck, in 4:01.2
It meant that Simply An Excuse had simply gained the a hundredth and the one hundred and first editions of the nice race. On each events he’d overwhelmed Elsu into second place.
And only for good measure he acquired third in his third New Zealand Cup in 2005, behind Mainland Banner and Alta Serena.
Simply An Excuse’s final race was as a seven-year-old on December 23, 2005. His retirement got here to a untimely finish two years later when he suffered a paddock damage. He broke his leg and was put down in June 2008.
On the time Robert Mitchell stated : “He has been such an important horse for us and actually didn’t should go like this.”
by Dave Di Somma, for Harness Information Desk
