‘Big Bar’ looking for unprecedented 11th win in Cardigan Bay Stakes

The 46th running of the G2 $63,000 Cardigan Bay stakes is being held on a bumper night of harness racing at Alexandra Park this Friday night (Mar. 24), serving as the penultimate feature race on the epic ten race programme headlined by the Great Northern Oaks and Derby.

As far as supporting races go, the first group race feature for the juvenile males promises to be an exciting one, with nine relatively inexperienced youngsters having their first taste of the big time over the sprint distance of 1700m.

Like the G2 Delightful Lady Classic, the training partnership that appear to hold a lot of the cards to the leading chances are the Barry Purdon and Scott Phelan duo, with a quartet of stablemates looking to add to the illustrious record of Barry Purdon and his association with the juvenile feature.

“We only bought five colts at the sales that year so to have four there in the first feature for two-year-olds is quite a good effort and we have to be pretty happy with. We like to try and get them to these early races and that’s how it has turned out,” said Purdon.

“The four of them are nice horses and we are lucky to have them, and they go into the race in good order really,” he said.

Purdon trained his first Cardigan Bay Stakes winner back in 1984 when in partnership with his legendary father Roy. Bilibib (Vance Hanover) was victorious on that occasion back when the race was known as the DB Double Brown Stakes.

Since then, Barry has added his name to the record books a further nine times with Chokin, Montana Vance, Il Vicolo and Ginger Man (driven by Barry) all winning in consecutive years between 1991 and 1993 (run twice in 93). Ivecomealongway won the 1999 edition and latterly Five Card Draw (2012), Mach Shard (2017), Montana DJ (2021) and Merlin (2022) have all added to the legacy of juveniles to win sporting the famous silver silks with blue spots.

Purdon’s ten wins in the G2 feature is tied for the most by any trainer in a record jointly held by brother Mark.

With the All-Star’s camp having no runners taking part in tomorrow night’s edition, Barry has the opportunity to get one up on his younger brother.

Few in the history of the sport are better at identifying and conditioning an early season juvenile and that has been franked by Purdon/Phelan winning two of the three heats en route to Friday nights G2 feature.

The most recent of those was last Friday night (17th March) when the Mark and Pauline O’Connor bred son of Always B Miki, Cold Chisel, peeled from a cushy one-one trip in transit to secure victory in his second race day attempt. He draws in barrier four and has the services of Zachary Butcher who is looking for a hattrick of Cardigan Bay Stakes driving successes tomorrow night.

“He raced like a horse that was learning a bit and I mean he is learning; it was only his second start,” said Purdon.

“He sort of hit the front and wandered around a wee bit and knocked off near the line, but it will all come to him with a bit of experience. He’s one of ours who worked really nice this morning, and I think he’s just stepped up a little bit of late,” said Purdon.

COLD CHISEL REPLAY

Cold Chisel is a half to the stakes performed fillies, Play Philly and Micaitlen Denario, and looks to be a type who can further furnish his dam Shezaball’s stellar production early in her broodmare career.

The early money for the G2 feature has come for second favourite, Escape Artist (Art Major), who has drawn the pole barrier for tomorrow night’s assignment and has the added bonus of the services of Barry’s brother, Mark Purdon to do the steering. His $3.80 quote on opening has firmed into $3.

Cold Chisel was an impressive winner of the second heat back on the 3rd of March where despite doing plenty wrong throughout the 1700m journey, was able to gun down first heat winner Yourdoingamazinsweety (Sunshine Beach) with relative ease.

ESCAPE ARTIST REPLAY

The son of Art Major is the first foal from the well performed and high speed American Ideal mare, American Tart. She was G2 placed behind Bonnie Joan and raced in elite company for most of her career which netted nine wins and nearly $100,000 in stakes.

“Escape Artist was a good run last time, he knuckled down strongly when he got the gap and really got to the line good. I think he could be the horse to beat out of our runners and is another really nice horse and has a nice and draw to work with. In saying that, there is little separating the pair,” he said.

The Purdon/Phelan quartet is rounded out by the two runners drawing the widest on the eight-horse front line, with In Excess (Bettor’s Delight) and Always Be Elite (Always B Miki) drawing alongside each other in barriers seven and eight.

Scott Phelan and Todd Mitchell will partner the respective charges who are coming off last start placings in the third and final heat last Friday night.

“The other two have done very little wrong either, Always Be Elite got home pretty good last time for second and it was a good effort to come from back in the field to run Cold Chisel to a close margin.

“In Excess did great also having sat outside the leader all the way which isn’t the best place to be. He stuck to his guns well,” said Purdon.

Purdon’s brother-in-law, Tony Herlihy, looks to have the best of the chances outside of the Purdon-Phelan camp with a homebred son of Sunshine Beach. Bred by Suzanne Herlihy out of the broodmare gem, Allesandro Ambrosio, Yourdoinamazinsweety is the eighth winner from the first nine foals out of the mare.

He was a debut winner of the first Young Guns heat back in February when flooding forced the Auckland programme to be run on the left-handed track at Cambridge and was far from disgraced in the second heat when beaten up the lane by Escape Artist.

YOURDOINAMAZINSWEETY REPLAY

The only other runner with a modicum of support so far is the Arna Donelly trained Le Major who at $10 on the fixed odd markets is a clear fifth favourite in the nine horse field.

For complete Auckland race fields, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink