Cullen keeping his amazing dream alive
For the man thrust into harness racing’s hottest seat, his second homecoming at Cambridge tomorrow has to go better than the first.
Hayden Cullen trains four of the hot favourites at the Jewels meeting, where nine $100,000 Group 1 races will be decided in a little more than four hours.
It is harness racing’s last big bash of the season, the final chance for skiting rights, and for Cullen, a return home.
A Cambridge lad, he grew up there before working in Pukekohe and eventually the South Island as foreman for champion trainers Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen.
When they took a step back from training for a more balanced life this year, Cullen and his Amanda were offered the lease of their property, and with it, the training of many of our elite harness horses.
They said yes and haven’t looked back, or slept much, since.
Everybody likes to show off their special achievements to the people back home and Cullen got that chance just days after he took over the stable, taking a team including New Zealand and Auckland Cup winner to his old home track of Cambridge for Flying Mile night in January.
He didn’t win a race.
He soon made up for that inauspicious start, and with Purdon and Rasmussen helping around the major carnivals, the stable is almost as dominant as it was under their name.
Cullen has already won Group 1 races and trained five winners in a night at Addington recently but having four favourites in the first six Group 1 races at the Jewels is something else. Especially coming home to Cambridge.
“I am excited about it, we all are,” Cullen told the Weekend Herald.
“It has been amazing to train these class of horses and to win those type of races but the Jewels are still something special for all of us.
“To be taking 16 horses there and so many favourites, to my old home track, it means a lot to us.”
Cullen opts for Akuta (R6, No 5) as his best winning chance, even though he has had only four career starts.
“He was super impressive at Addington and has travelled up well,” says Cullen. “We have a strong hand in that race but he is the best of the juvenile boys.”
Cullen says Group 1 girls Amazing Dream (R1, No 9) and Bettor Twist (R3, No 8) are the most “in the zone” of the fledgling stable’s reps but realises they face difficult tasks from the worst draws.
“They are really well and ready to win and they have the right driver in Natalie to drive them aggressively.”
Far better drawn and the best of a dominant team in the two-year-old Diamond is True Fantasy (R4, No 3).
She was stunning winning two of the three major fillies races at Alexandra Park in the last six weeks and was beaten by a passing lane rival after sitting parked in the Harness Million last start.
“She looks very hard to beat because I can see her leading but one of our other fillies there in A Bettor You might be the smoky.”
Two-year-old trotter Highgrove has been the biggest market mover at the Jewels all week, while there has been strong support for many of the favourites.