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RACING HISTORY

 

YEAR: 2001

FEATURE RACE COMMENT

2001 PGG YEARLING SALES 2YO SERIES OPEN

Everyone has a favourite horse. Mark Purdon's will always be Il Vicolo, the brilliant son of Vance Hanover which helped put him on the map when he launched his training career in the 1995/96 season.

Beaten only three times at two and never at three, Il Vicolo won 31 races in total and his back-to-back New Zealand Cup victories in 1995 and 1996 sit highest on the shelf of Purdon's fondest memories. And now that he is winning races with Il Vicolo's progeny, it is the next best thing. Purdon guided Jack Cade to an all-the-way victory in the PGG Yearling Sales Series Open, an event Il Vicolo himself won seven years earlier.

The win has pushed Jack Cade's dad into second on the list of leading sires of juveniles (by dollars won) for the season, which is no mean feat considering this is his first crop. Jack Cade (three wins), Tricky Vic (two) and Lord Vicolo (one) have been the main contributors, vindicating Purdon's faith that he would make it as a stallion. He and principal owner John Seaton specifically went to the Sales last year with the intention of bringing two or three home, and there was something about Jack Cade that stood out. "I liked him on type, and there was a lot of quality about him," Purdon recalled. "Il Vicolo did not have many in the sales, but they were all nice types and I think his average reflected that."

Jack Cade stamped himself as top 2-year-old material right from the word so this season, winning first up at Alexandra Park in a sensational 1:57.5 mile rate over 1700 metres. He has only been out of the money once in six starts since, when an unlucky fifth in the Welcome Stakes, and although not offering excuses Purdon says the gelding hasn't been a hundred percent lately. "He has had an on-going respiratory infection since about February," he said. "It is not a common one, and he has had a cough and a slight nasal discharge. Bill Bishop has been treating him and we are getting on top of it now. He has been a bit brighter in the coat lately."

Just last week Purdon and Seaton sold Il Vicolo to Woodlands Stud. There has been a great deal of interest in the stallion after his first season results, and Purdon says letting him go was one of the hardest decisions he ever had to make. "He had a lot of sentimental value to me. During his first two seasons at stud I used to bring him home and jog him through the winter. It was just a bit of a change for him. He was always a lazy trackworker but he loved it, and he loved being back in the same box that he had when he was racing. We didn't get him back last year because we were just too busy with the horses; I was quite looking forward to having him around again this year."

It is ironic that Purdon signed on the dotted line only a matter of hours before a son of Il Vicolo he trains won the richest 2-year-old event of the season, but he says that is just the way it goes. "There was never o lot of money in owning a stallion in his early days; when you are striving to get numbers on the ground you have to do deals here and there. "But winning the race again with one of his progeny is a great feeling, and I am pleased for the new owners too because it is a nice start for them."

Purdon has not retained any breeding rights to Il Vicolo, saying he is busy enough with the racing team as it is. He has only got one broodmare - Super Smooth, the dam of Scuse Me - but there is a possibility she could visit the Vance Hanover stallion when the time comes next season. Apart from two Il Vicolo fillies bought from the same sale as Jack Cade, Purdon has a yearling gelding by the sire that is showing promise and he also bought another one privately this season.

Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 09May01



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