Glamour pacer Akuta dominates market but trainers keen to avoid Methven mud

As an Auckland Cup winner, Akuta holds the key to the Methven Cup today. Photo / Trish Dunell

For once the shoe is on the other hoof heading into the biggest race in New Zealand today.

That hoof being a harness racing one, more specifically the ones connected to outstanding pacer Akuta.

Akuta is the red-hot favourite for today’s $40,000 Alabar Cup at Methven, and even from his 30m handicap, he is expected to win if the Methven grass track provides solid footing.

As a result, trainers Mark and Nathan Purdon will find themselves in a position usually reserved for trainers of good gallopers, not harness horses.

While many thoroughbred trainers around the country have been forced to scratch horses this spring because of wet tracks, it is rarely a factor for harness trainers, as most harness meetings are held on all-weather tracks like Addington.

Furthermore, the majority of grass meetings are held in summer and it is even rarer for a horse of Akuta’s quality – an Auckland Cup-winning millionaire – to be starting on a grass track.

It is almost impossible to know whether Akuta would justify his $1.50 should he start on a track rated soft or worse today, but Nathan Purdon says a hard run on a wet track isn’t their main concern.

“Because he has had a tendon injury in the past we wouldn’t want him starting on a bad track,” he explains.

“That is how they can reinjure a tendon because if it was really wet, his hoof would go into the grass quite deep and the tendon gets stretched when they pull it back out.

“Today [Saturday] it sounds like the track isn’t too bad but we will wait until the morning to make a decision.

“I will ring somebody down there [Methven] tomorrow and see what the track is like before we decide but we won’t take any risks.”

With Akuta rated a $1.50 chance by the TAB bookmakers, his scratching would totally reshape the market and punters have very little wet-grass track form to work with, especially over the already testing 3000m distance.

The most logical form reference is pacers who have previously performed well on grass tracks; they should be more comfortable on wetter turf than the pacers who have only tasted success on all-weather tracks.

Two of those are Franco Marek and American Me, the latter having won this race two years ago and being a one-paced stayer, would seem most at home should today become a real slog.

So if Akuta does come out, Franco Marek looks the best win chance but American Me the best value and a good place bet at $2.40.

If Akuta doesn’t use today as his next step to the IRT New Zealand Cup on November 11, he will instead head to the Canterbury Classic at Addington on October 17.

That already shapes as one of the races of the spring, as Akuta would be likely to meet the Holmes D G quinellamates from Friday night in Sooner The Bettor and Merlin, as well as Republican Party, We Walk By Faith and Don’t Stop Dreaming, together comprising the majority of the local pacers with any chance against Aussie raiders Leap To Fame and Swayzee in the New Zealand Cup.

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.