The following is a statement from owner Joe Muscara, followed by each horses stats and top race.

I have started the Mach Three Horse Of The Year award to foster understanding between the fans in Australasia and North America about the horses from each country and the style of racing in which they compete. All the groups of participants in harness racing think they are most important. Breeders think they are most important, drivers and trainers think so as do the owners.

We will not survive as a sport if we don't put first who deserves to be treated as the most important individuals in the sport, the horse. Next comes the fan who we can not survive without and who has no one to stickup for them. Because they are so important to our industry I have decided to let the fans have a say and pick the Mach Three Horse Of The Year.

The choices for this year are: Auckland Reactor, the three year old of the year in New Zealand, and Somebeachsomewhere, the 2008 North American Horse of the Year.

The North American season ends the end of November and voting will take place throughout December. Harnesslink, the internet publication, has about equal readers in North America and Down Under. They have agreed to do the vote tabulation on their site as an impartial referee. A very nice trophy will be awarded the winner in January.

Is it hard to compare a horse that runs mile dashes like Somebeachsomewhere and a horse that races at 2400 or 2700 or 3200 meters as Auckland Reactor does? Sure it is. But the very thought process involved in comparing these very different harness horses will foster a better understanding of the racing styles in each country.

The harness breed as a whole has benefitted from the exchange of genetic material between these countries and this will continue. The next step will be to take what is best from each style of racing and incorporate what is best into a product that can survive and prosper. We now have a world wide global economy and this applies more and more to harness racing. Harness racing is more than mile dashes.

I watch The Hambletonian at The Meadowlands every year with about twenty visitors from New Zealand and Australia. All the best pacers and trotters of all ages in one exciting race after another. It's our best day of racing. It's fun to watch knowledgeable horseman from other countries, the best drivers and trainers and breeders and owners, step away from their professions for an afternoon and be fanatical racing fans. But a week later without all the best horses our product becomes a numbing progression of mile dash after mile dash.

When I paid two and a half million dollars for Mach Three at the beginning of his three year old season in 2002, a record for a racing harness horse at the time, many " knowledgeable " people in the sport said I was nuts. No one says that any more. Mach Three has sired champions in North American, New Zealand, Australia and England including some very outstanding race horses from just his first three crops.

I have imported more horses from abroad than anyone and when I first started importing horses from New Zealand and Australia in the early seventies it wasn't hard to tell a foreign horse. They were coarse bodied horses with klunky looking heads. Now after years of shuttle stallions the foreign horse is a much improved animal. This trend will continue. With breeding restrictions starting in North America next year more really good stallions will shuttle. Even some really good trotters will shuttle.

Hanover Farms who never sent a stallion abroad will have to do so with Somebeachsomewhere. You can't spend ten million for a stallion and just keep him in Pennsylvania. You can't pay four and a half million dollars for Auckland Reactor and not send him to America for half the year. Even the great New Zealand sire Christian Cullen will stand in North America next year. This exchange of genetic material will be beneficial for all the countries.

Christian Cullen and his sire In The Pocket and Mach Three and his sons and future stallions Somebeachsomewhere and Auckland Reactor all are decedents of Peter The Great who was a descendent of the Hambletonian son Happy Medium. Peter The Great's decedents rule trotting but their influence on pacers was waning leaving the real and disturbing reality that all our pacers would be from the one Hambletonian son, Electioneer.

The huge success of Christian Cullen and Mach Three and the large support that Somebeachsomewhere and Auckland Reactor will receive will do more to increase genetic diversity than any breeding restrictions will ever do.

I have owned well over three hundred horses over the last forty years. I have seen the sport go from very popular where 12,000 people came out to Liberty Bell or Brandywine or Yonkers or Roosevelt on an average Saturday night then be almost wiped out by the introduction of New Jersey casinos and state lotteries in the late seventies. Slot money in Ontario, Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania have helped to keep the sport going.

But if we hope to survive another forty years we have to produce a better more exciting product. We have to put live customers in the stands. At most tracks you can have dinner in the clubhouse and bet every race for less than fifty dollars. You may even win a few races. That's a bargain for three or four hours of entertainment. How long does that fifty dollars last in the casino ? We have to produce a better product on the race track, get more people into the stands and then entertain them once they are there so they come back. We have to understand that we are in the entertainment business just as much as we are in the horse business and if we fail to entertain we won't be in the horse business long.

Joseph V Muscara, owner of Mach Three

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AUCKLAND REACTOR [Mach Three-Atomic Lass (Soky's Atom)]:

Age: 4-year-old bay entire.
Trainer: Mark Purdon and Grant Payne (Christchurch – NEW ZEALAND).
Driver: Mark Purdon (Christchurch).
Official Website - www.aucklandreactor.com

Potentially New Zealand’s best standardbred and possibly the best pacer to have raced in New Zealand since New Zealand Trotting Cup winner Christian Cullen, who last raced in January 2000. Even old stalwarts of the game in New Zealand are comparing him with brilliant millionaire pacer of the 1960s, Cardigan Bay.

Up until December 1 the tough entire had been unbeaten in 15 starts and has phenomenal in his four starts already this season, winning all four easily including the demolishing of 2008 New Zealand Cup winner Changeover in the group One $300,000 New Zealand Free-For-All at Addington Raceway on November 14. That was his first race against open class opposition. His most recent victory at Alexandra Park on November 28 was also impressive when smashing the 15-year-old track record for the 3200m stand (3:59) by half a second.

Voted New Zealand’s Harness Horse of the Year in 2007-2008 as a 3-year-old, his greatest success up until this season was the Group One $200,000 Sires Stakes Final for three-year-olds at Addington in November 2007 his greatest triumph to date so far.

The Christian Cullen Derby, also a Group One event worth $200,000 at Addington, in April is also another major accomplishment.

Auckland Reactor’s 15 consecutive wins equalled that of the great former Kiwi pacer Noodlum and is just nine short of Courage Under Fire’s New Zealand record of 24 straight wins. As at December 1 Auckland Reactor had won $597,428 in stakes.

Auckland Reactor Stories

1. Auckland Reactor runs remarkable record (21st May 2008)
2. Auckland Reactor - best pacer in New Zealand (17th November 2008)
3. Track record-15 straight-Auckland Reactor (29th November 2008)

Auckland Reactor Takes on the top NZ horses in the $300,000 FFA Mobile Pace

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SOMEBEACHSOMEWHERE [Mach Three-Wheres The Beach (Beach Towel)]:

Age: 3-year-old bay colt.
Trainer: Brent Mcgrath (Bible Hill Nova Scotia - CANADA).
Driver: Paul Macdonell (Guelph, Ontario).
Official Website: www.somebeachsomewhere.ca

A racing phenomenon, who has won $3.3 million in stakes from just 21 starts. Of those 21 races the gifted colt has been beaten just once when finishing a neck second to Art Official (By Art Major) in a $1.1m pace at The Meadowlands on July 19 this year.

His highlight victories have been winning two races worth in excess of $1m, namely the $1.5m D Pepsi North American Cup Final for 3yos on June 14, 2008 at Mohawk Racetrack and the $1m D-The Metro Pace Final for 2yos, also at Mohawk on September 1, 2007.

His most memorable win came at Bluegrass in the coveted Red Mile on September 27 when equalling Holborn Hanover’s (by Cams Card Shark) world mile mark for a 3yo (set at The Meadowlands in 2006). His time of 1:46.4 is also an all-timers record.

His most recent win in the $500,000 Breeder’s Crown Final at The Meadowlands on November 29 was also impressive when beating the talented Shadow Play in 1:48.3. He lead for most of the way in that mile and never looked like getting beaten, despite Shadow Play sitting in the luxury trail all the way. The ‘freak of nature’s’ current (December 1) stake earnings rest at $3,328,755.

Somebeachsomewhere Stories

1. Mach Three son in world record (2nd September 2007)
2. Somebeachsomewhere strolls in $1.5M Cup (16th June 2008)
3. Somebeachsomewhere equals world record (28th September 2008)

Somebeachsomewhere world record equaling 1:46.4