New $10m race scales heights
Racing reporters Tim Ryan and Mat Kermeen review the week’s happenings.
ONE: Forget Chocolate Wheaten, Gingernuts just can’t be beaten
Punters were hot on Gingernuts even before his scintillating exhibition gallop at Matamata on Saturday but he now looks unbeatable in next Sunday’s rescheduled Group I Livamol Classic.
That’s a big call heading into a Group I but he looked exceptional and galloped accordingly with stablemate and Livamol rival Chance To Dance. The pair galloped side-by-side for most of the 1200m before Gingernuts drew away in the last 150m with Opie Bosson in the saddle. They ran the
1200m in 1:15.6, the 1000 in 1:01.5 and the last 600m in a slick 35.1 seconds.
Leith Innes rode Chance To Dance and was impressed, Bosson was super impressed with his mount. ‘‘He’s flying, I gave him a click at the 200m and he just went whoosh,’’ Bosson said.
‘‘He worked well [Chance To Dance] and was good through the line, but the other horse worked exceptionally,’’ Innes said.
Gingernuts ($2) is hot for the Livamol with Chance To Dance
($5.50) equal second elect with Volkstok’n’barrell.
‘‘We’re very happy with both of them,’’ said Stephen Autridge, who trains the pair in partnership with Jamie Richards.
‘‘Gingernuts is in great order at the moment and acting like a twoyear-old. They’re exactly where we want them ahead of what’s coming up next weekend. They’ll probably work separately on Tuesday morning and then they’ll be ready to go.’’
TWO: Racing in the mainstream swim
Mainstream media has been all over the sport this week – and it’s been good news, not scandal. Kiwi heroes Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman have been right in the thick of it. Baker on mainstream news across the Tasman and Forsman on primetime TV news at home. And then there was coverage of the inaugural A$10 million The Everest won by Redzel.
Love or hate the concept of the race, there is no doubting the coverage the race has generated in media circles, some great stories too, can only be good for racing.
THREE: New ideas bring new blood and new money
Speaking of The Everest, if Saturday taught us anything, it was surely the realisation that sometimes racing needs to be bold to be beautiful.
New ideas will attract new audiences, if the fresh thinking is promoted properly. More than 33,000 people turned up to Randwick to see what the Everest was all about.
A concert following the last race would have helped drag a few of them along. The exposure from mainstream and international racing media was so strong you couldn’t even measure it if you tried.
New Zealand racing will never have $10 million to throw at a race but surely there is some way to come up with a poor man’s version.
We all love the history of an iconic Group I but the crowds that attend those race days – outside of the New Zealand, Wellington and Auckland Cups – show the casual sports fans don’t.
The closest thing to the Everest in New Zealand is Karaka Million night and that event is a raving success so let’s find a way to put a couple more hyped up novelty-party dates on the racing calendar.
FOUR: When the Price is right
Young Matamata couple Jason and Kelly Price go quietly about their business.
They trained a winner at their home track meeting on Saturday but that was nothing compared to the buzz they got later in the day.
She’s Prismatic, who they also own, won under jockey Sam Weatherley in A $22,500 race, their first winner this season from five runners. But it was the A$500,00 Group I Thousand Guineas win of Aloisia at Caulfield that got them super excited.
‘‘We were absolutely over the moon,’’ Jason Price said. ‘‘To do what we thought she could do was great.’’
They bred the Azamour filly with Kelly’s brother Michael Hall out of their Group placed broodmare Queen Boudicca. They took the filly to the yearling sales but couldn’t sell her so they made the decision to race her.
Two smart two-year-old efforts for a fifth and a second, in which she beat subsequent Hawke’s Bay Guineas winner Hard Merchandize, caught the eye of astute bloodstock consultant Phill Cataldo and an offer was tabled which proved irresistible and she was on her way to Australia.
They later sold the same connections a Keeper half-sister and the Prices will continue to reap the rewards through a halfbrother by Swiss Ace and recently born foal by Dalghar and the progeny of a planned mating with Preferment.
After Saturday’s win Aloisia is aiming at next month’s VRC Oaks at Flemington and may take on Winx beforehand in the Cox Plate. ‘‘That will be interesting,’’ Price said.
FIVE: Another Mark added to Purdon family legacy
Mark Purdon, one half of the most dominant training partnership New Zealand harness racing has ever seen, joined the two men who previously held that mantle when he became the third person to train 2000 winners on home soil at Addington on Friday night.
Purdon, who trains in partnership with Natalie Rasmussen, knows those two men – the only other members of the
2000 training wins club – well. One is his father Roy and the other is his brother Barry.
Mark Purdon, a twelve-time New Zealand training premiership winner, was a more than deserving inductee into the elite
2000 club. If there is something he hasn’t achieved in the sport, then it’s probably not worth worrying about.
And the Purdon production line is not showing any signs of slowing down. Mark Purdon’s boys, Nathan and Michael, are already showing that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.