 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2008
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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Ian Dobson and the Met people may as well drop the NZ Derby trophy off to Mark Purdon now. It's near enough to as good as won by Auckland Reactor, and the believers are now well and truly in the majority.
But first, there are formalities to attend to, and that means Auckland Reactor must perform as he did in winning the First Sovereign Trust Flying Stakes at Addington in devastating style last Friday night. His cruel disposal of seven other good 3-year-olds made it crystal-clear that none of then are in his class, or even close to it. He beat Justa Tiger by seven lengths and his stablemate Fiery Falcon by a fraction more. It was a beating of big proportions, and the $200,000 Christian Cullen-sponsored Classic has the look of an open and shut case.
Phillip Kennard, one of the co-owners of Fiery Falcon, put on a brave front by saying how he was looking forward to a better draw and trying to stick within four or five lengths of Auckland Reactor and see what difference that would make. He took comfort in seeing Fiery Falcon finish within eight lengths of Auckland Reactor after perhaps, at best, being 10 lengths from him at one stage. Hope for better might be one thing, but getting it quite another.
While Auckland Reactor looked as fresh at the end as he did at the start, he didn't win the contest without some push and shove. Purdon ran him hard out of the gate, and then Gavin Smith pressed up with Cullen's Legacy to see if the lead was available. He was hard to settle from there and, committed to attack, ran keenly alongside Auckland Reactor for 800 metres, until dropping off and finishing 15 lengths behind. "I had an idea where he might finish up," said Purdon. "After going hard early, and then attacked, I was a bit surprised my horse had as much left as he did," he said.
This was Auckland Reactor's ninth successive win, which puts him in easy reach of equalling and bettering the record of Purdon's previous 3-year-old star Il Vicolo, who won 11 in succession at that age. Auckland Reactor can make it 13, if he wins the Derby, Southern Supremacy Final, the Harness Jewels and a lead-up race to that. Purdon says he's "potentially the best" horse he's had. "When he came down from the north he was just a horse, and well behind the other yearlings at the same stage. I gave him six weeks work, but he was nothing remarkable at the time. There was no pressure on him because he wasn't paid up for anything. I liked him, without there being anything special about him."
When he was back in again at two, Purdon said there was still nothing to mark him out. "We had Fiery Falcon, Ohoka Arizona and Steve McQueen, all nice horse, but they'd also done a lot more. It was not until I'd taken him to a couple of workouts, where he ran second and third, that he started to impress me. Both times I thought he could have gone past the others if I'd asked him to. Off the place, it seemed as if he would step up." And when he qualified "stylishly", he became a "nice" horse, and Purdon then had the Sires' Stakes in the "back of my mind. That was a great performance, winning that, but he is a better horse now."
If Purdon and co-trainer Grant Payne had worries from time to time about his condition, they don't have them now. "He's the biggest eater on the place," Purdon said. "I recently saw a picture of Mach Three (his sire) after he won a race at the same age, and from the neck back you'd say they were identical." Between the Group 2 win of last week and the Group 1 he goes for this week, Auckland Reactor had a solo run on Monday and worked with company on Wednesday. It seems Purdon is cautious with what he does with him. "I could work him hard and he can be a good trackworker."
After Auckland Reactor and Fiery Falcon, the Mach Threes at All Star Stables almost run out. He doesn't have a 2-year-old, and his only yearling is the colt from Russley Friction bought at the Australasian Classic by Neil Pilcher and Bill Grice.
Credit: Mike Grainger writing in HRWeekly 2Apr08