Champion horseman oozing confidence for huge meeting

Oscar Bonavena, seen winning the Dominion in 2023, is one of several favoured drives for Mark Purdon at Addington tonight. Photo/Ajay Berry

This is a public service announcement for punters: Mark Purdon is confident heading to Addington’s mega meeting tonight.

Which means when assessing many of the features on the stacked 13-race card, you should start with the champion horseman’s drives before looking anywhere else for your money makers.

Purdon being confident is not unusual when discussing a horse or two, after all, he has trained an army of champions who have been close to unbeatable in a series of Group 1 races.

But this week, there is extra spring in his step. He has had the elite members of the team he trains with son Nathan down in Canterbury, able to give them the one-on-one kind of attention that gets the best out of them.

It is called the famous Purdon polish and tonight you can consider the team polished.

“We are really happy with them,” he told the Herald.

“The main players, the big names like Akuta and Oscar [Bonavena] are in really good places and most of the young ones are too.”


So pleased is Purdon he is confident he can drive both Akuta, who starts off 25m in the handicap pace and Oscar Bonavena, who is on a 20m handicap in the open trot, aggressively.

“Of course, it depends on the race tempo but I wouldn’t be scared to make a move on Akuta,” explains Purdon.

“He is a horse who can do some work and he is ready to do that this week if the race pans pan out that way.”

That makes him the horse to beat in a small field, with Republican Party the obvious danger but possibly still on the way up, whereas Akuta has had four races this campaign.

Oscar Bonavena was stunning winning on the grass at Banks Peninsula last start but faces the double challenge of a 20m back mark over 2000m and his arch rivals Bet N Win and Muscle Mountain standing right alongside him.

“Luck will play a part but he is in a really good place and I wouldn’t be scared to do some work on him even though he is best when driven for speed,” says Purdon.

Purdon is also talking unusually tough with Rubira from barrier 1 in a red hot Flying Stakes for the three-year-old pacers.

“I’d like to stay in front on him,” he offers.

“I think he has more gate speed than Got The Chocolates and the only other horse I could consider trailing is Marketplace but if we handed the lead to him and he didn’t cop any pressure, I don’t think we’d catch him.”

The father-and-son training combination have three reps in the $150,000 NZBS Harness Million for two-year-old pacing fillies and Purdon opts for Shezsofast as their best hope.

“All the fillies are well but River (No.1) is the one who has really thrived since getting down here so she could be the improver.”

The champion trainer also finds himself in the rare position of having two outside drives on favourites tonight in Midnight Diamond (R1, No.6) and Arafura in the three-year-old fillies pace.

“I have been really impressed by Midnight Diamond, she is a good strong trotter while Arafura was excellent late last start and will be hard to beat, although her stablemate Winelight will be a big danger.”

The Purdons have expensive last start flop Special Occasion in tonight’s $200,000 Harness Million for the juvenile boys but he meets a deep field headlined by the unbeaten Jumal and the impressive pair of Zeus Lightning and Allamericanplayer in what will be the definitive juvenile race of the season so far.

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.