I'd delighted to report that life is imitating art (or the virtual world).

Races 10 and 11 at the Levin Racing Club's Xmas meeting at Otaki Racecourse, New Zealand, on Thursday NZT will be raced as the Starters Orders Rating 70 Mile.

Thanks to Mark, Otaki was included in SO4 along with the Group One Levin Classic for 3yos which is also over the distance of one metric mile.

To see the fields:
1. Go to www.tab.co.nz/racing
2. Under meetings (on right) click on 17 Dec 2009 to expand the list.
3. Click on M4 Levin Races Otaki
4. Click on race links to 10 and 11 middle of the screen.

Mark can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the first race meeting where SO has been given naming rights.

For the many Oz fans of SO, I think the races will be shown live in Oz on Sky.

Once the race replays are available, I will provide a link.

This is awesome. It would be good if we could do something similar in the UK and other countries aswell.

Good stuff Dodgy. I presume this is something you have set up?

It is! And thanks for organising this Dave.

Nice on Dave, lets hope it's a cracker.

Good work Dave, look forward to seeing the race.

JV.

As the race was split into two, I requested a modification to the race names.

They are now:

Race 10 StartersOrders.com Rating 70 Mile

Race 11 Starters Orders Horse Racing Game Rating 70 Mile

As mentioned, the races should be live to Oz but not sure about other areas. I'll put links to the race replays when they are up.

http://www.nzracing.co.nz/Meetings/Meet ... aspx/37361

You will need to register to see the replays unfortunately. Likewise, they've cut off the intro at the start but that's life.

Was a lot of fun and good racing to boot.