Young trotter Meant To Be steps up to the big time

Meant To Be is one of New Zealand's best young trotters but takes on more established stars tonight. Photo / Ajay Berry

Champion trainer Barry Purdon is adamant Meant To Be has the motor of a good open-class trotter.

But tonight’s $40,000 Trotting Stakes at Cambridge could be a little too soon to see that motor pay dividends.

Meant To Be is a trotting rarity, having looked like an open-class horse even when winning as a 2-year-old, an age when most trotters are still trying to work out where their legs are supposed to go.

After a luckless back end to his 3-year-old season, Barry, who trains him with Scott Phelan, knows there is nowhere to hide.

“He has to step up to open class at some stage, and I have no doubt he is good enough,” Purdon says.

“Whether he can win this week, first time against race-fit, hardened open-class trotters, I am not sure, but he will get there for sure.”

Meant To Be is a victim of his own impressive record of nine wins from 16 starts as he comes into open class as a Rating 84 horse. This means that, under tonight’s preferential draw conditions, he starts from the outside of the front line.

It is incredible to think the youngster is rated 14 points higher than Hillbilly Blues, who has won just one race fewer but whose victories include the Group 1 National Trot at Alexandra Park last week.

While Hillbilly Blues has raced only sparingly left-handed, he has shown good gate speed. If he rolls to the front from barrier 3 tonight, it is hard to see how Meant To Be, or any of his rivals, will catch him.

Belle Neige, who has been a consistent improver and was huge in the National Trot, and the wonderful elder statesman Oscar Bonavena are the obvious dangers.

Oscar Bonavena has won this race twice but has been beaten, usually with merit, in his last seven starts as he is finding it harder to give away the starts he often does with his usual sit-and-swoop racing style.

If they burn early tonight, Oscar could win and look stunning doing it. However, the days of him being sub-$3 in most open-class races, even one of such mixed quality as tonight, must surely be coming to an end.

The early burn for positions could also determine tonight’s pacing free-for-all, which has only four starters but may not be as straightforward as it looks.

Akuta has barrier 3 and Merlin barrier 4. The market suggests Akuta will use that advantage to lead, which would make it extremely hard for Merlin to beat him.

But the two pacers drawn inside the favourites, Little Spike (1) and Jolimont (2), are Arna Donnelly stablemates and the Cambridge trainer is rarely scared to give her horses their chance in front, especially with aggressive reinsmen Andre Poutama and David Butcher aboard.

If Akuta leads, he should win. But if the Donnelly stablemates fancy the lead-trail scenario, that makes Akuta the horse who will have to sit parked at some stage with Merlin almost certainly on his back, the latter then becoming the horse to beat.

“It is going to be very interesting,” says Purdon, who also trains Merlin.

“He can obviously win, but so much is going to depend on what they all do early.”

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.