| HORSES |
YEAR: 2004
A Young Rufus but not the original was the competitor at Addington last week. Had it been the Young Rufus of old, he would not have scrambled home like a handy 'C sixer' ahead of Clifford Jasper in a kind race for him last Thursday. His margin should have reflected the great horse he is - or was. Indicating he had lost interest in being a racehorse, he got home by a neck.
With a booking to leave for Auckland, and then on to Melbourne, trainer Mark Purdon was immediately faced with the choice of retirement on a high note or a campaign that carried a high risk of ending on a sad one. "I would not like to take him to Australia and for people to see him finish down the track," said Purdon.
As it was, the winner of the Auckland Cup by nearly eight lengths a year ago and last season's Pacer of the Year was all-out to win a five-win front off 20 metres with just a flicker of the old flame. Purdon said it was pleasing for Young Rufus to end his career on a winning note and top $900,000 in stakes.
Up in the trainers' stand, Grant Payne, his attendant since Purdon had shifted south, was "disappointed." "I expected him to win by three or four lengths. In his last hopple before the race, he had worked as well or better than ever before. When he got to the races, all he could think about was the breeding barn. When he came back to the boxes, he was pretty fresh - you wouldn't have thought he had had a race," he said.
Payne said he had enjoyed the travelling that came with caring for a great horse. "Five times to Australia, everywhere here. He was a great mannered horse, and liked company. He never really liked being by himself."
Payne's devotion to the stallion played a part in his remarkable recovery from a life-threatening operation to mend a twisted bowel on the eve of the Inter-Dominions at Addington last year. For three nights, he slept outside his box as Young Rufus tettered between life and death. "I never really thought he was going to die, but Bill Bishop said to me later he put the chance of survival at thirty percent."
Payne said the Auckland Cup win was his most compelling performance. "He was one fit horse for that. I don't think any horse in the world would have beaten him that night," he said. "No matter how quick you were going with him, you knew that you were on something special. But he would always hang a little. You would straighten him, and he'd just hang the other way."
Pyne said Young Rufus was always a pleasure to parade. "He was a show horse. You would finish grooming him and stand back and look at him, and you couldn't help thinking how good he looked. He was one of those horses that you'd walk out, and people who didn't know him would ask 'What's that horse?'"
Bishop, who performed the operation to save Young Rufus, said the horse was not affected physically by his experience. "He got back all his old habits. It is hard to evaluate whether the operation had any lasting affect. It is fair to say the expectations on the track were high. But how he looked and how he raced did not co-relate," he said.
In the meantime, Young Rufus is having a few days swimming to keep himself in trim.
Credit: Mike Grainger writing in HRWeekly 28Jan04
YEAR: 2001
 |
| 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
YEAR: 2001
 |
| Vicki Purdon with Young Rufus after the FFA |
Young Rufus earned a ticket to contest the Miracle Mile in Sydney, but he won't be going. Harness Racing's latest budding star was officially issued with an invitation to the event after his sensational victory in the $100,000 Air New Zealand Free-For-All at Addington on Show Day. But trainer Mark Purdon says at this stage of the pacer's season it was not in his best interests to trek across the Tasman, where four of his six owners live. "He's done a big job this week, winning those two races," Purdon said. "And if we went over there we'd have to keep him up, plus there's all the travelling with a float trip to Auckland and a flight to Sydney. I just thought we are doing the best by the horse to decline to offer."
Young Rufus's elevation to centre stage this season has been sudden but not totally unexpected, although his trainer/driver is slightly surprised. "He has always been a nice horse, but I never expected him to rise to this level so soon," Purdon continued. "The night he finished sixth first-up at Alexandra Park he was supposed to be in a 4-year-old race that never got of the ground, so he ended up racing against his own class and they went 2:42.5 (2200 metres), home in 55. He probably wasn't ready for that. But after he came back from Auckland he went super one day at the trials, beating a couple of nice horses including Kym's Girl, and I thought then that he may have just turned the corner."
To Ashburton on Labour Weekend and Young Rufus scored impressively there, so impressively in fact that Purdon thought he could have almost won the Flying Stakes earlier that afternoon had he got the run that stablemate Bogan Fella did in the event. Purdon kept his feet firmly on the ground though, and come the minor Free-For-All on Cup Day he had some reservations very late in the piece. "When we were walking around at the start I looked at the other horses in the race and thought 'gee, I hope I'm not being too tough on him here'. But he put up a huge preformance that day, and it looked even better when I watched the replay of the race later that night. You just don't see horses do what he did."
Nominated for Show Day's Air New Zealand FFA just so Purdon had the option up his sleeve, Young Rufus showed no ill-effects from his tough Cup Day outing so he started him in it. And what the young pretender did to his older more experienced rivals was simply outstanding.
Having just his 19th raceday appearance, Young Rufus eventually got to the lead, ran them along, and still kept enough gas in the tank to kick with the best of them in the home straight. "In front was the place I wanted to be," Purdon confirmed afterwards. "Kym's Girl was the horse to beat, because the Cup winner generally is in the Free-For-All, and you can count on Colin (De Filippi) to be timing his run to perfection. I looked round turning for home because I thought 'she'll be turning up here very shortly'. But when you run your last quarter in 27.7 in front and on the fence like he did, it makes it hard for the rest,"Purdon said.
Credit: John Robinson writing in NZHR Weekly