Bizarre odds for feature winner

A Kiwi father and son dream team have combined to produce one of the most staggering big-race price oddities in recent harness racing history.

While nobody should be surprised Amazing Dream won the first running of the A$250,000 Rising Sun at Albion Park in Brisbane on Saturday night, how she paid $19 Australasia-wide will forever remain one of the great racing mysteries.

The 4-year-old New Zealand pacing mare made the most of a perfect drive from Mark Purdon to get up along the passing lane to win the Group 1, denying her Auckland arch rival Copy That, with New South Wales pacer Expensive Ego nudging Krug out of third.

The victory earned Amazing Dream her place in pacing’s millionaires’ club in her first start for new trainer Nathan Purdon, a son of champion trainer Mark.

Nathan moved to Victoria this year and has taken over Amazing Dream, who was formerly trained by his dad, because her United States-based owners believe she has more suitable options in Australia.

Mark has been in Queensland on holiday with partner Natalie Rasmussen but was coerced into driving Amazing Dream when first-choice driver Anthony Butt stuck with Copy That.

“To win the first running of the Rising Sun is great but to do it with dad in the sulky makes it that much more special,” says Nathan.

“And of course he drove her perfectly.”

Mark Purdon managed to secure the trail behind shock favourite Krug, getting Amazing Dream out of the gate better than she usually does to basically win the race at the start.

It was a supreme training performance from young Purdon who opted to not race Amazing Dream since her failure in the Jewels at Cambridge on June 6, electing to trial her instead.

“She had a hard run at Cambridge and I believe confidence is a big thing in horses, so I wanted her to have two easy trials to make her feel good about life again.”

Amazing Dream has proved a tricky horse for punters to read, winning her toughest races yet being beaten in her last three major mares’ races by horses who wouldn’t be rated in her class.

But even allowing for that, how the Auckland Cup winner was allowed to drift from $12 to $19 from barrier three in a race where a 3-year-old in Krug started $2.70 favourite or Copy That a $4.40 third favourite from the outside of the second line defies all belief, even more so when Mark Purdon took the reins.

Amazing Dream will start much shorter when she contests a mares’ race back at Albion Park this Saturday, with Butt likely to do the driving as Mark Purdon is booked to return home today.

Copy That and Krug will also line up next week, as will American Dealer, who beat the older horses in the A$30,600 Rising Sun Consolation earlier in the night with Butt driving for trainer Ray Green as the Kiwi clean-up in Queensland continued with a feature-race win for the last three weekends.

by Michael Guerin