Trainer Brent Mangos will have the rare thrill of taking his stable star South Coast Arden for a race night spin at Cambridge tonight, and he looks to have found the perfect race for their reunion.
Mangos and South Coast Arden will start hot favourites in the $20,000 Cambridge Classic, a race initially supposed to also contain Self Assured, but his trainer Mark Purdon has decided to wait until Alexandra Park next Friday.
Not that Mangos would have had to fear Self Assured because South Coast Arden matched motors with him all spring, including beating him in the NZ Free-For-All at Addington in November.
Mangos had to watch that and most of South Coast Arden's other races last season from his Pukekohe home as he was unable to travel south for months due to lockdown.
That meant Natalie Rasmussen teamed with South Coast Arden last autumn. Mangos left her on for the a stunning Jewels win at Cambridge in June, then Rasmussen was on again for the South Island spring campaign.