Purdon rival keen to ignore history books

Aussie trainer David Aiken is far more interested in his horses than the history books heading into the greatest race of the pacing season.

Aiken looks to be the biggest, and some would say only, judder bar on Mark Purdon’s road to success in the A$750,000 Miracle Mile at Menangle in New South Wales on Saturday night, with two huge chances in Lennytheshark and Hectorjayjay.

Both won their preludes last Saturday night and in most other years Aiken would be considered to have a stranglehold on the Mile.

But he has two problems — Purdon has three in the Mile, and both of Aiken’s runners in the field have drawn wide.

Only Have Faith In Me has come from outside barrier four to win a Miracle Mile since the race moved from Harold Park to Menangle in 2008, so both Aiken’s stars are drawn in the badlands.

So too is Lazarus (barrier six) but Purdon has Smolda (one) and Our Waikiki Beach (three) drawn to be handy.

“A lot of made of the barrier draws but the history doesn’t bother me,” says Aiken.

“Hector’s draw doesn’t look great but he still has the best gate speed in the race and if we go forward on him he will come back to Josh [driver] when he needs to.

“But he is also just as good coming from behind. That is how he won the Len Smith Mile here last season.”

But Aiken says Lennytheshark having the slightly better barrier draw does make him at least as good a chance as his stablemate.

“He is flying and we know he went 1:47.6 last season running second last season so he won’t need to go much faster.

“So we are not losing sleep over the draws or what the history books say because there are three great horses drawn wide this week and maybe they will end up carting each other into the race.”

Lazarus remains the favourite around Australasia, between $2.40 and $2.60 depending on where you bet, but there are huge discrepancies in the prices for other runners.

One major Australian bookie has Hectorjayjay at $3.80, another at $5.50.

New Zealand-trained pacers are favourites for the Mile, the NSW Oaks (Partyon), NSW Derby (Vincent), Ladyship Mile (Dream About Me) and Bohemia Crystal Free-For-All (Chase The Dream).