High Stakes means harder better: La Crique cream on cake
The harder the better for favourite La Crique in the $100,000 Rotorua Stakes today.
The dual Group 1-winning mare gives punters a rare taste of May galloping glamour in today’s fillies and mares’ 1400m, which sits alongside the Rotorua Cup on the city’s biggest raceday of the year.
La Crique is the cream on that cake as she not only chases a lucrative Group 3 target but prepares for a possible one-race Queensland raid.
Today’s race is a bit of an afterthought, though, as La Crique missed last month’s New Zealand Breeders at Ellerslie because of a late hoof issue but co-trainer Simon Alexander says she is over that.
“She is healthy and in good shape but not screwed down,” he told the Weekend Herald.
“So she will improve with this but we realise she should have a class edge and the weight-for-age scale should help us.”
That is why Alexander, who trains La Crique with wife Katrina, is happy to see speedsters like I’munstoppable and defending champion Wessex in the field.
“It looks like there should be good speed, and if she [La Crique] can begin well from 2, then she should be able to sit midfield outer and get her chance.
“But it would get trickier if she gets further back, or one of the leaders gets away. The better the tempo, the better her chances are.”
La Crique hasn’t won over today’s 1400m trip since her maiden victory but go through her defeats and they have been in elite races such as the Tarzino Trophy (twice at Group 1 level), the BCD Sprint (Group 1) and the Westbury Classic (Group 2), so this is likely a far easier 1400m test.
The question for punters is if you don’t back La Crique at her $3.20 quote today, who do you back to beat her?
Put any horse in today’s field headto-head with La Crique and she beats them.
But add in tempo, traffic concerns and the unusual nature of racing at Arawa Park and that equation becomes more complex.
But the $3.20 is fair as the Rotorua weather looks to hold, so the track should suit the favourite nicely.
Kiwi interest split
Two of the stables with at least some chance of beating La Crique today also have favourites in Australian features.
Trainers Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott, who have Karman Line and I’munstoppable in against La Crique, also have Molly Bloom making her Australian debut in the A$160,000 Gold Coast Bracelet, which has been transferred to the Sunshine Coast.
The New Zealand 1000 Guineas winner faces a big test on a heavy track but looks the class filly in the 1800m test.
Rival trainer Andrew Forsman, who has Wessex and Mary Shan in the Rotorua feature, has Positivity as favourite in the A$170,000 SA Fillies Classic at Morphetteville (4.02pm NZ time) today, with Damian Lane to ride.
Kiwi mares Fashion Shoot and Wonderful Tonight also line up in the A$150,000 Proud Miss Stakes there at 5.12pm.
Purdon moving north
Harness racing’s greatest trainer Mark Purdon is moving north and will be based in Matamata.
But while Purdon will remain in partnership with son Nathan, he will have a reduced role in the business and spend more time with his thoroughbreds.
Purdon is moving north to be with his partner, Matamata-based veterinarian Barbara Hunter, and will bring four thoroughbreds with him.
“I’ve been enjoying training the gallopers and will continue to help out with them but they will be stabled with Glenn Old up here,” says Purdon.
“I’ll work in with him but I’ve told Glenn I’d like them to be in his name so I can have days away to do the harness horses as well.”
Nathan has been the main trainer in the father-and-son partnership for the past year, but with plenty of hands-on work from Mark, who is widely considered New Zealand’s greatest harness trainer alongside brother Barry.
After achieving almost everything possible in harness racing, Mark has taken time away from the industry at different stages in the past five years but says his move north will mean far less time at the stable’s Canterbury base.
“I’ll still talk to Nathan every day and help with work lists and we will also investigate taking over some boxes at the Cambridge [harness] track to base a team there over the summer when we always have horses come north,” says Purdon.
“So I’ll still be involved, especially at carnival times and when the horses come north, but after the Auckland Cup carnival and a bit of a break, I’ll be living in Matamata and I’m really looking forward to it.”