All Stars stable to finish up at end of year

RACING

AUCKLAND: New Zealand’s most successful harness racing stable is being disbanded.

All Stars Racing, the allconquering stable of champion trainers Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen, will stop training from December 31.

They will remain together as a couple but have decided to take a year away from training horses.

If and when they choose to return it will be on a much smaller scale than the huge operation they run at Rolleston, near Christchurch.

Their property will remain open but be run by current stable foreman Hayden Cullen and his wife, Amanda.

‘‘It is time for a break,’’ Purdon said.

‘‘Between us Nat and I have been training or working with horses almost 70 years combined,’’ Purdon, who is 56, said. Rasmussen is 43.

‘‘We want to have a break, freshen up and take time to enjoy life next year.

‘‘And during that break we will take time to consider what our future looks like.’’

Purdon will retain his racedriving licence so he can still drive at major meetings, but Rasmussen is still considering whether she will.

‘‘We have told [Hayden] we are happy to come help out leading in to these carnivals, but the stables are going to be his with his wife Amanda’s and the business will be theirs, definitely not ours.

‘‘All Stars Racing will be closed down from December 31 and if we even come back to training full time I would say it would be on a lot smaller scale.’’

Purdon will take a team of elite horses to Australia for a small campaign in late summer to target major races there out of respect for their owners and the fact Cullen will be busy setting up his new business.

Purdon and Rasmussen dominated the New Zealand Cup carnival at Addington last week, winning the New Zealand Cup for the sixth time in the last seven years as well as three other group 1 races.

Their domination is like nothing ever seen in New Zealand racing.

Since he went out on his own in 1995, Purdon has trained the winners of a staggering $58 million in New Zealand alone, and he has won most of Australia’s richest races multiple times.

Australian Rasmussen joined him as life and training partner in 2013. — The New Zealand Herald

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES Natalie Rasmussen and Mark Purdon are interviewed after their horse, Self Assured, won the New Zealand Trotting Cup at Addington Raceway in Christchurch last week.