Arden’s Memory wins first Nevele R heat

The win by pacing filly Arden’s Memory (Bettor’s Delight) at Addington tonight was tinged with sadness for the Stiven family of Tapanui who bred and own the harness racing filly.

Arden Lodge’s John and Judy Stiven lost their son Lee while he was in the UK in May 2020 and the horse is named in his memory.

The three year old is out of super mare Venus Serena and is owned by John, Judy, David, Scott, Kate and Danielle Stiven.

Driver Blair Orange took the Mark and Nathan Purdon trained filly forward early before handing up to Melody Banner.

The two fillies went to war down the straight with Arden’s Memory showing how brave she is, beating Melody Banner by half a length, with Ruby Roe storming home late for third just a head away.

ARDEN’S MEMORY REPLAY

“She’s got some of her mother’s qualities there. At Ashburton the other day (when she won) each time Blair asked her she just kept giving and it looked the same tonight,” John said.

Like a lot of Arden Lodge’s young stock Arden’s Memory was broken in by Canterbury horseman Grant Payne.

“Grant really liked her so we sent her to Nathan. She was taken to Auckland where she had that problem when she fibrillated. She had a spell after that and Nathan got her back in January. He trialled her. She just wasn’t 100% and we found she had a chip on her fetlock.”

The filly was operated on by Invercargill vet Brendon Bell.

“The operation was textbook. We gave her time to recover from that and I jogged her for about three weeks before she went back up (to Purdon’s).”

Form there a plan was hatched for Arden’s Memory to have two trials prior to starting at Ashburton.

“It’s pretty cool that we made a plan that has come off.”

Stiven says his children and their partners are now in the market for tickets for the Group One Final and are pretty excited about it.

“I kept saying to the kids that if she goes good tonight, we know we’ve got a good horse. To go that good, I think we might have one now.”

Meanwhile Mighty Logan (Creatine) announced his arrival into the open class ranks when he upset his more favoured stablemate Sunnys Sister in the XCM Basil Dean Trotting FFA at Addington tonight.

Owned by Barry and Dianne Clark and trained by Robert and Jenna Dunn the win was Mighty Logan’s sixth in just twenty four starts.

Driver Tim Williams took the five year old squaregaiter to the front and he held on to beat Sunnys Sister by a head.

Tonight’s race is a salute to Basil Dean (Great Evander) one of this country’s pioneer trotters, who forty years ago set Addington alight with a run for the ages in the New Zealand Trotting Championship over 2600 metres from the mobile.

His winning time of 3-15.3 was not only a New Zealand record but a world record which stood for seven years before Last Sunset lowered it to 3-14.4 at Addington in 2001.

To demonstrate how sensational Basil Dean’s time of 3-15.3 was forty years ago, Sundees Son holds the current New Zealand record of 3-10.4.

Basil Dean’s major wins were the 1984 Dominion Handicap, The Canterbury Park Trotting Cup (twice), the National Trot, the Benson and Hedges Inter-Island Trotters Stakes and the Ordeal Cup.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink

For complete race results, click here