 | RACING HISTORY |
YEAR: 2010
FEATURE RACE COMMENT
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Because numbers are thin at the top end, I Can Doosit will line up in the Group 1 NZ Trotting Championship at Addington this Friday night. That's half the reason why, the other is the horse's undeniable talent - which was on display again in no uncertain terms when I Can Doosit waltzed away with last Saturday's $25,000 Lone Star Bar & Cafe 4-Year-Old Trotters Championship. The son of Muscles Yankee joined in and breezed on by near the business end of the 2600m Group 3 event, putting away his stablemate Pocaro and the rampant pacemaker McCready with ease as he won in a super quick 3.18.
Co-trainer Mark Purdon wasn't in the sulky this time, the reins instead being handed to Blair Orange as Purdon sat behind Pocaro, and he got to experience I Can Doosit's continuing dominance from another perspective. This was win number eight from just 12 starts and the fifth in succession for I Can Doosit, who was having his first look around Addington after a northern assault that saw him burst onto the trotting scene.
"There's been real improvement in him over the last eight to ten weeks," Purdon said, not meaning to state the obvious. "And there's some very nice horses in that intermediate grade in Auckland, but at his last start before returning south I was just so impressed with how he picked them up inside the last one hundred and fifty metres. He's a very, very promising type."
I Can Doosit is the third foal of Chiola Hanover mare Sheezadoosie, following in the footsteps of Continentaldoosie (1 win) and his highly regarded year-older full-brother Sno's Big Boy (11 wins to date). Purdon knows the breed well too, because he trained Sheezadoosie throughout her career and drove her in all but one of her seven victories. "She was never a naturally-gaited trotter," he recalled. "She's got better as she got older, but she was never fool-proof and wasn't one of those horses you could throw the reins at. So she did pretty well to get as far as she did."
Purdon considers himself "very lucky" to have I Can Doosit in the stable. The gelding was bred by Ken Breckon's company Breckon Bloodstock Ltd and is owned by a syndicate he manages called Breckon Bloodstock, and if I Can Doosit hadn't been a late withdrawal from the Sales as a youngster he could have well been doing all his winning for someone else. "He got hurt, doing significant damage to the tendons around the fetlock in a hind leg after being caught in a fence," Purdon said. "I had inspected him at Yarndley Farms leading up to the Sales, and he was a real standout. There's no doubt that he would have been a $100,000 yearling had he not got injured."
I Can Doosit began his career at Winton less than a year ago, running third on debut before winning at Oamaru and then Timaru during May. "He just scraped into the Jewels, but if anything he was on the way 'down' again because he'd done a lot in a short time. Tony (Herlihy) drove him for us that day, and he said the horse wanted to do it but just couldn't handle himself over a mile. Pocaro was way above him at that stage; he's really closed the gap now."
Purdon has both trained and sat behind some star trotters in his time, and even though he knows I Can Doosit's not quite up there yet, he says the 4-year-old's not far away. "He's such a great stayer, that's his forte, and I think his performance and time last week reflects that he's ready for the next level. You can do anything with him - go to the front or sit parked; he's a real nice horse. And we haven't ruled out this year's Rowe Cup with him either."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 8Apr10