Regan Todd’s life has come full circle thanks, in part, to Marketplace
by Adam Hamilton
When Regan Todd was growing up with stars in his eyes, his favorite horse was the former brilliant New Zealand pacer Iraklis.
There were layers to the love beyond just the greatness of Iraklis, who won 22 races, including the 1996 Miracle Mile and 1997 New Zealand Cup, and banked over $1 million.
Like Todd, Iraklis’ trainer, the legendary Robert “Bob” Cameron is from Wyndham, in the harness heartland of New Zealand’s deep south of the south island. Cameron won the 1983 World Driving Championship and the inaugural Miracle Mile in 1967 on Robin Dundee.
“That was a great time for the sport with two all-time greats in Iraklis and Christian Cullen racing,” Todd said. “I was always ‘Team Iraklis,’ especially because Bob was from down south like me.”
Life’s gone a full and satisfying circle for Todd, now firmly established himself as one of New Zealand’s key trainers with a stable headed by the immensely exciting 4-year-old pacer Marketplace.
“Here I am about 30 years later training from Lavros Lodge, the same property where Bob trained Iraklis and some of the other great horses he had,” Todd said. “It’s quite remarkable, really.
“The place is still owned by Kypros Kotzikas [who owned Iraklis] and we rent from him. Bob still lives here upstairs.”
In another layer of the connection, the first star Todd trained — albeit unofficially — was former top trotter Master Lavros, owned by Kotzikas and nicknamed “Kippy” after him.
Master Lavros won 20 races, including New Zealand’s two premier trotting events, the Dominion (in 2013 and ’15) and the Rowe Cup (2014).
Although he was officially trained by Mark Jones, Todd’s boss at the time, Jones was the first to credit Todd’s huge role with the injury-plagued star.
“Mark was great like that, he didn’t need to do it, but after the big wins, he would always make a point of saying how much of the work I’d done with the horse,” Todd said. “I worked for [Mark], so it was my job, but he wanted people to know the work I’d put in.”
Many credit Master Lavros as a key part of paving the way for Todd’s successful move into training in his own right, showing how good he was training horses with issues on the beach from Jones’ stables on the property owned by David and Catherine Butt.
Before Todd’s time with Jones, he learned the craft with Brendan “Snow” McLellan for a few years and then jumped at an opportunity to move to the relatively big smoke near Christchurch to work for the Butts.
“I’ve been so lucky to work at three great stables and have such great people to learn from,” he said.
“Mark let me train a few in my own name while I worked with him and then I decided to give it a crack myself. I trained out of Woodend and Lavros Lodge [in Yaldhurst] for a while, but the travel between them got hard, so I moved them all to Lavros Lodge about three years ago.
“There’s no doubt I had a lot of cast-offs and horses with issues to train at the start, but things started to change about 2020 when I had some terrific owners and could buy some nice yearlings.”
One of those was Marketplace, who was New Zealand’s 3YO of the Year last season, and boasts 13 wins from just 23 starts, including four at Group 1 level.
He is one of a new brigade of Kiwi pacers trying to arrest the dominance Aussie horses have enjoyed in the biggest races in this part of the world for the past three years.
Rather than wait to try and do it on his home patch, Todd has crossed the ditch for some lead-up racing at Menangle in Sydney before his “grand final” target in the $350,000 Group 1 Rising Sun at Brisbane’s Albion Park on July 4.
Todd is no stranger to Australia; he trained his first Group 1 winner when Show Gait won a Breeders Crown final at Melton, driven by Hall of Famer Mark Purdon, in 2018.
“That was an unreal trip,” Todd said. “My first Group 1 and getting time with an amazing horseman like Mark [Purdon]. I learned so much.
“I got a taste of it and loved it, but it was even better when I got my first Group 1 winner at home [in New Zealand], although I had to wait a long time for it after Show Gait. It was Bettor Talk Art during COVID [in 2022] in the New Zealand Breeders’ Stakes at Addington.”
But it is Marketplace who has really put Todd on the mainstream map.
His rivalry last year with the Got The Chocolates through a string of epic 3-year-old clashes pointed to them both being a bit special.
Got The Chocolates has seamlessly taken the giant step into feature open-class racing with his past two remarkable Group 1 wins in the Roy Purdon Memorial and Messenger in Auckland.
By design, Marketplace has a later and lower key start to 2026 with wins in both starts at Addington, including the Group 2 Superstars last outing.
“It was a hard call to miss those big early races this year, but he’s got great owners who supported me to give him extra time out after a huge 3-year-old season,” Todd said. “I’m glad we did. It has worked out perfectly now, we’ve had the two runs at home and another few runs in Australia and then another break before the New Zealand Cup [in November].
“He’s come through that last win great and we’re going over early to let him settle in and have a race or two at Menangle before the big one in Brisbane.”
Champion Aussie trainer Luke McCarthy will return the favor and host Todd and Marketplace in Sydney and Brisbane.
“It was a buzz to have Luke stay with us [at Lavros Lodge] last year [in November] when he came over and won the New Zealand Cup with Kingman,” Todd said.
“I’ve known him for a while, since I had about a three- or four-month stint in Bathurst [NSW, Australia] when Mark [Jones] set-up a satellite stable in NSW and I was working for him.”
While Todd thinks the world of Marketplace, he knows the enormity of the challenge waiting for him in the Rising Sun.
The raging hot early favorite for the race is champion 4-year-old mare Captains Mistress, who will draw better than Marketplace under the preferential conditions of the race.
“I’ve got a bit of inside knowledge on her,” Todd said with a laugh. “I used to drive her a bit in work and she stayed with me when she was trained back in New Zealand by Nathan Williamson.
“But she’s really gone to the next level since moving to Australia and that’s what my fella is going to have to do now.”
While much has been said and written about Marketplace being one of the pacers to potentially restore New Zealand’s pride after the recent Aussie dominance, Todd doesn’t buy into that too much.
“I just love seeing great horses do their thing, I’m not really fussed if they are Aussies or Kiwis,” he said. “I loved it at Cambridge [in April] when Grant Dixon and Jason Lee spoke about how appreciative the Kiwi fans were to their [Aussie] horses winning the big races.
“It does look like we’ve got a good batch of young horses in New Zealand at the moment, though, and it’s great to have one of them.
“It’s really cool that two of my best mates [Bob Butt, trainer/driver of The Lazarus Effect and John Dunn with Got The Chocolates] have the other two.
“It’ll be fun when we hopefully all come together at Cup time in November and the best of the Aussies are there, too.”
