Purdon/Phelan camp headed South in sublime touch

South Island harness racing was put on notice last night (Oct 4th) by a scintillating quartet of victories from the North Island’s premier stable of Barry Purdon and Scott Phelan at Alexandra Park.

The Clevedon based training partnership dominated the nine race programme with four impressive winners and the timing couldn’t have been better.

The stable is set to ship a large team of 15 horses to be based in Canterbury for the remainder of the Spring in due course, and if last night was anything to go by, the connections of South Island pacers and trotters hoping to win the looming feature races have some cause for concern.

Firstly, it was a New Zealand record from the Breckon Farms bred and raced two-year-old trotter, Ocean Eyes (Father Patrick), that got the ball rolling with a great performance against the older trotters.

The juvenile filly was theoretically in the trail for most of the race, but with Dylan Ferguson setting a torrid pace in front with Heartbreak Hotel, the Purdon/Phelan trained daughter of Father Patrick was at least 5 lengths off his cart and more or less carrying the chasing pack throughout.

Ferguson’s trotter was heartbroken at the 600m and Ocean Eyes capitalised with a sweet trip through along the insider and withstood all challenges to take .4 of a second of the 2YO Filly national record for the 2200m stand with a time of 2:51.7. Her co-trainer and driver was naturally impressed with the performance.

“I’m really happy with her, she keeps getting better each time and is quite a strong filly who will be a lot better next year but I’m pretty happy with what she is doing at the moment,” said Phelan.

OCEAN EYES REPLAY

Phelan was also delighted by the performance from one of his regular race night drives in the high class three-year-old son of Lazarus in Jeremiah who was an impressive winner of race five, this time in the hands of Zachary Butcher.

“It was a good win and a good drive to get there, he is a real professional race horse and I’m looking forward to getting down south with him and taking on some of the big boys,” said Phelan of his charge.

Drawn in barrier seven against a handy field of up and coming pacers, Butcher was content to let Jeremiah settle at the rear of the field before sending the talented son of Lazarus on a searching run to get outside the leaders wheel with a lap left to run.

As he has shown on a handful occasions now, Jeremiah has inherited some of his fathers toughness and was tenacious in overcoming the talented Arna Donnelly pair of Mako and The Surfer in the run home. His last half of 56.7 and final quarter of 26.7 adding further credence to his New Zealand Derby aspirations. Jeremiah is now the winner of three of his four starts this campaign while finishing runner up in the other.

JEREMIAH REPLAY

In the nights feature, the $37,500 Holmes DG played host to a number of New Zealand Cup aspirants and the Purdon/Phelan barn flexed their Cup week muscle training the first four home.

The superstar four-year-old son of Art Major in Merlin has long been thought to be the nations brightest hope of snatching the silverware back from our Australian counterparts, and last night he showed he is right on song for the second Tuesday in November with a bruising two length win with some sensational sectionals in the run home.

Merlin provided his reinsman with his fourth win in the Holmes DG and his third in success and Butcher was buzzing in the aftermath of the performance.

“It was a super run, he was sort of really cruising round that bend and we let him slide a bit which is pretty exciting with the times he run and heading towards Cup Week,” said Butcher.

“It’s going to be a great race, hopefully we see Larry (Leap To Fame) over here, that will really make it. Obviously it’s our aim to beat him and win the Cup. To do that would be pretty special, he is an absolute superstar Merlin and it would be great to beat another superstar,” he said.

MERLIN REPLAY

Phelan who sat behind third place getter, Sooner The Better, was glowing with praise of not only his charge, but the New Zealand Derby 2nd favourite who was gallant in taking on the older horses and charging home into second.

“Merlin was awesome and I tried my hardest to beat him,” he laughed.

“But Cold Chisel (Always B Miki) went super taking on the older horses. He’s got a three-year-old race next week at Addington and it was a good clean out running second to Merlin, he is going to keep getting better to so really happy,” he said.

It was going to be hard for anyone to top the performance of the magical Merlin, but arguably, the return of whats looks to be a special juvenile filly may have done just that.

Youretheonethatiwant (Captaintreacherous) was making her first race day start since May when suffering her only defeat at the hands of the subsequent WA Golden Slipper winner, Cyclone Jordy, when she tackled the boys in the Cardigan Bay Stakes almost five months ago.

Sitting second last throughout the 1700m journey in the hands of Scott Phelan, the blue blooded filly peeled five wide and and showed an incredible turn of foot to reel in her race fit contemporaries with ease and book her ticket for the Sires Stakes 2YO Fillies Final on Show Day.

YOURETHEONETHATIWANT REPLAY

“She is pretty nice and we have thought she is pretty good for a while so it was good to come out on the track and do it and looking forward to getting her down to Christchurch,” said Phelan.

“We have a great team behind us with the staff and fingers crossed we get a bit of luck down there because you need it in the big races,” he said.

For complete Addington race results, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink