By Michael Guerin
The name Purdon dominating a Friday night of harness racing in New Zealand is nothing new.
But while training legend Barry and his well-established nephew Nathan were in the winners circle on Friday night this time it was Nathan’s brother Michael who was the star of the show. He recorded the second richest win of his career when he and partner Alison Ward trained Le Venture, who they also co-own, to win the richest race at either Addington or Alexandra Park, the $40,000 Macca Lodge Sires’ Stakes Classique for juvenile trotting fillies. Le Venture may also have been leaving maidens winning the Group 3 but she is clearly way better than that, having been a factor in several of the juvenile trots already this season. With none of the stars of that crop against her she was confidently driven by Sam Ottley and never looked like losing after strolling to the front a lap from home.
“It was actually my second richest win because when Mystic Max won the South Bay Cup at Kaikoura one year it was worth $60,000,” explains Michael. “But it is a huge thrill because Alison and I are in her and so is Mum who got a real buzz out of it and Trudi Robertson is the other owner and it is the first horse she has ever been in.”
Purdon and Ward train 10 horses at the moment with three pre-trainers. “We are always looking for more horses so the door is open.” Brother Nathan earlier trained two winners with Alecto (Race 1) and Lady Di (Race 5) both winning as you would expect from Group race performers dropping back into the grades while he capped a superb night when Incentivise led throughout to win at Alexandra Park. There would have been nobody prouder watching all that unfold than Michael and Nathan’s father Mark, the champion horseman at home recovering from his injuries after being kicked by a horse in training recently.
Earlier in the night Barry Purdon and Scott Phelan trained the trifecta in the main Alexandra Park pace when Merlin held out Better Knuckle Up with Sooner The Bettor third in the opener. It was Merlin’s 25th career success and he did it from in front in 1:52.3 and there was plenty to like from the winner and the runner-up in what was their Go Media New Zealand Cup trial. “They will both come on with that and Merlin had a good blow after the race,” said Barry. “We were thrilled with both of them and it wasn’t a bad return from Sooner The Bettor either after so long off.”
Merlin and Better Knuckle Up won’t race again before the Cup on November 10 with Purdon saying they will either go to the NZ Cup trial or even have a private workout, potentially at Addington, to get them ready for the greatest race of them all. Ironically while all the Purdons were winning on Friday night it was Barry’s brother-in-law and Nathan and Michael’s uncle Tony Herlihy who may have produced the most eye-catching win at either meeting with Our Col.
The three-year-old trotting filly trotted a 1:56.4 mile after never being on the marker pegs to beat some good older horses and looks spot on for the New Zealand Trotting Oaks at Addington in two weeks. She has that something special about her and should love the 2600m mobile of the $125,000 Oaks at Addington but there are still some very serious southern three-year-old trotting fillies set to clash at Ashburton on Monday who will be waiting for the big beautiful girl when she makes it south.