Cambridge trainer Stephen Marsh hoping for final surge to end record season

El Vencedor had a stunning season for trainer Stephen Marsh. Photo / Race Images

To Stephen Marsh the number 105 is greater than the number 7 million today.

But to be honest, the Cambridge trainer says he wants both.

Marsh heads to the seven-race synthetic meeting on his home track today having already smashed his personal best for stakes earned in a season but sitting level with his previous best of wins in a racing term of 104.

By comparison in the 2021-22 season when Marsh last trained 104 winners, the stable reps won $3,035,877, showing just how far New Zealand stakes and Marsh’s stable quality have come in just three years.

“The money now is fantastic and to be this close to $7 million in stakes for the season is pretty incredible,” he says.

“So I’d love to get those extra stakes on Wednesday [$22,522] to try and get to the $7m and I think we have a chance.

“We will have horses in four races and almost all of them are favourites.

“I had a bit of an add-up, if we can win two races and have a second we are a chance of getting there.

“But regardless of what that final number is we are very proud to have won so much money for our owners.”

Those New Zealand-based stake earnings also don’t count the $300,000 bonus won by stable star El Vencedor for winning Rich Hill Middle Distance series he dominated over the summer.

While the money matters, the final figure doesn’t mean as much to Marsh as just getting one more win on Wednesday to reach a new personal best of 105 for the season.

“We have already achieved that PB in stakes but I’d love us to cap the season with even just one more win to get past that 104 we got a few years ago.”

Marsh says Hasstobefast is his best hope today (R5, No.1), favouring her in that race rather than Race 3, which she is also favourite for.

“But all of those we are lining up have a chance.”

Marsh says El Vencedor, who must be favourite for NZ Horse of the Year, is ready to step up his workload, with his first major realistic aim being the $550,000 Livamol, now to run at Ellerslie on October 18.

“He could start in the second Group 1 of the season over 1600m at Te Rapa on the way through but the Livamol might be his first big target that he can win.”

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.