 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2001
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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| Young Rufus & City Rogue (inner) at the end of the Derby |
Looking back, David Butt knows he could not have done it better. He gave City Rogue every possible chance to win the $100,000 Smokefree New Zealand Derby, and he ran second. He should have won. And he would have had there not been a man named Mark Purdon in the race.
Butt was visiting Purdon country when he set off to win the Derby at Addington. The history of the race, in which Purdon has been the star player in recent years, might have been far from his mind when he led out and then eased when Purdon and Young Rufus took the lead with 2000m to run. On the corner, when he sent City Rogue into the passing lane, it was still not an issue. "I'd done everything right," he said. And he had.
For the first time in many starts, City Rogue had been given a good draw and a good run. He deserved to win a good race, and he was looking it in the face. It appeared a safe prediction that with a trip like this he would gather in Young Rufus, whose form and well-being had been under scrutiny. There was none of this fear in the City Rogue camp; they had been bullish on his health and form all week. Indeed, for much of the trip to the finish, City Rogue narrowed the gap but not with the resolve and hard crunch that was needed. Butt was to discover very quickly that this was not the Young Rufus of the lead-up a week before. This was not the same performer who had run a meek eigth behind Country Ways and six places back from City Rogue, and whose class was on notice. In a few days, Purdon had turned him into a tiger.
Butt knew before most that the 'Derby Man' was back in town. "I knew some way out that I wasn't getting to him like I should," he said. And neither he did, for Young Rufus won without a strain on the eye in the end, though the margin was just a half-head. Country Ways ran the race of a good horse, third, challenging four-wide on the corner.
The Purdon legacy on the Derby is almost a copyright. He has won the classic with Mark Roy (1993), Il Vicolo (1995), The Court Owl (1996) and Bogan Fella (1997). Mark Roy was by Soky's Atom, and so is Young Rufus, who is owned by the Let's Party Syndicate, a group of six members from Australia and New Zealand. A brother to the Free-For-All pacer Captain Rufus, Young Rufus has always been rated highly by Purdon. He was on fire with some brilliant races at the Cup meeting in November, but did not return well for his racing after a break. "He has always shown a lot of potential. We had him checked out on the Tuesday before the race and soundness-wise he was fine. The next day I got Fred Fletcher to go over him, and he found him to be quite sore at the base of the neck, and also in the muscular area in his hind quarters. He felt good when I worked him on the Friday, and I just felt all week that he was turning the corner," he said.
In spite of wearing a pole, Young Rufus still lost ground on the bends, especially the one near the 1000m on the last lap. When called up for real determination in the straight, Young Rufus was ready for it.
Credit: Mike Grainger writing in HRNZ Weekly