Sucitra wins for Keast

Harness racing returned to the grit at the Gore Raceway today for the first time since February 2020 and the first race was taken out by the Darren Keast trained Sucitra (Bettor’s Delight).

Having run third at her last start behind the unbeaten Millwood Nike (Captaintreacherous) in Auckland in February, the three year was sent out as $1.50 favourite and in the hands of Blair Orange she won by half a length from Captain Sarah (Captaintreacherous).

“She’s always had a bit of X factor. I had her going at two and raced her at Addington but unfortunately swinging for home she shot through the gap too quickly, touched a knee and fell over,” Keast said.

As a three year old Sucitra was then sent north to Mark and Nathan Purdon’s stable for the Harness Millions with the idea of sending her over to Australia after that race.

“They originally thought that she wasn’t going to make the grade up there but she improved. I was going up to Auckland for the Sales, had my flights booked and Nathan text me saying I should come up for the race. He told me she wasn’t going to beat Nike (Millwood Nike) but she could run top three, so I changed by flights.”

She ran third and after the run Mark Purdon told Keast Sucitra would be competitive in some of the three year old feature races.

“Unfortunately she got a bad virus and we had to bring her home.”

Keast said he was planning on trialling Sucitra yesterday at Addington but looked at the nominations at Gore and decided to make his first trip south as a trainer.

“I looked at going to Timaru and looked at the money (stake) down here and thought it was too good to pass up. The stake was an extra two thousand dollars and the Club put up an incentive to come down.”

Keast has sixteen horses on his books and Sucitra is the oldest.

“We had her sold for good money but she got an abscess on her foot and it never came right so I turned her out and the stars have aligned for her today.”

Keast says he’s lucky to work at a state of the art training facility on twenty acres at Weedons which is owned by his grandparents Paul and Pauline Renwick who own Sucitra.

“Both my grandparents and the whole family have supported me. We built a fourteen bay concrete tilt slab stable with boxes based on the All-Stars barn but on a smaller scale. I wouldn’t be here without my father (Jamie) as well. We were training in partnership for a while, but he’s got out of horses.”

Keast has twelve yearlings, five of which were bought at last years sale. The stable has a half brother to Millwood Nike named Ohoka Nico (Sweet Lou).

“We went to the sales last year and my grandfather gave me a budget. We went through the book and put down all the prices we thought they would go for but we were getting blown out of the water. This horse (Ohoka Nico) came through the ring and I really liked him. Millwood Nike hadn’t stepped out at that stage. We were going to pay $30,000 for him but we ended up paying $42,500. My grandad looked at me and said’ tell me we didn’t buy that horse.’ A month later Millwood Nike came out so we were very lucky.”

The stable also has Akuta’s (Bettor’s Delight) full brother.

After today’s win Keast acknowledged the help he gets from James McDonald the stable foreman and former trainer Steve Hale who also works on the property.

SUCITRA REPLAY

Later in the programme Castelo De Vide (Bettor’s Delight) won his second race for Earl Swain. Keast won a Cup Day maiden by eight lengths with him at Addington in November 2020.

For complete race results, click here.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink