Racing: Akuta wins Auckland Cup

Akuta (right) won the Auckland Cup. Photo / Trish Dunell

Rarely do big races that go so wrong end as right as the Auckland Cup did for the All Stars at Alexandra Park on Friday night.

New Zealand’s greatest harness racing stable, under its latest version of father and son trainers Mark and Nathan Purdon, quinellaed the iconic race with Akuta and Self Assured, the pair holding out the surprise late charge of Smiffys Terror, with Copy That fourth.

Akuta was in danger of missing the Cup when he was forced out of the final lead-up, the Roy Purdon Memorial, just seven days before with a hoof abscess.

While he recovered quickly, few of our great Cup winners ever turn that level of setback around a week out from the big race. It was especially challenging for Akuta since he hadn’t raced for a month before that and had also missed the Messenger.

But, still only a four-year-old, he beat our best pacers over 3200m in 4:00.55.

“He is just a wonderful horse, he has been a very good horse all along,” said Mark Purdon, who drove his seventh Auckland Cup winner.

There was jocular disappointment when Purdon discovered, contrary to what he had been told on course, he hadn’t caught up to brother-in-law Tony Herlihy, who has driven eight Auckland Cup winners.

“They said I had equalled Tony?” asked Purdon.

“But I haven’t? Oh, ok.”

Purdon does have 11 Cup wins as a trainer now though, with no end in sight as we may yet to have seen the best from Akuta, who now joins Christian Cullen, Mainland Banner and Gotta Go Cullen as winners of one of our two biggest Cups for owner Ian Dobson.

Akuta is only halfway through his four-year-old season and if he isn’t the best pacer in the country now his age would suggest he will eventually take over from Copy That and Self Assured.

The latter was the second half of the stable quinella and as good as the winner was to overcome his interrupted preparation, Self Assured’s performance was one of the best, if not the best, of his career.

He was crossed early and only just lost a race to get off the markers to Kango, who then pressed on to lead.

Natalie Rasmussen driving Self Assured sent him forward for a lead dig and another brief one, and when she lost both she eased him back to four back the markers.

He later found the one-one and loomed up to win at the top of the straight before Akuta, who followed him from the bell, peeled off his back to beat him.

Few horses ever lose a serious lead dig, get dragged back and then are still a factor at the end of Auckland Cups, so Self Assured’s effort was superb, capping an autumn in which he has suffered more defeats that victories but never raced better.

Earlier in the night, ignorance proved bliss as it gave young driver Matty Williamson the biggest win of his career behind Love N The Port in the Rowe Cup.

Williamson wrote the latest chapter of his famous family’s story in our greatest trotting races, with his father Phil and brother Nathan and Brad having already driven trotting winners at the highest level.

The win came via a seemingly perfect drive as Williamson stepped Love N The Port to the lead and then took the trail behind hot favourite Muscle Mountain when he came asking at the 1100m mark.

But Williamson admitted after the race he didn’t know what every punter watching the race did - that Muscle Mountain had galloped at the start and lost at least 80m, so taking a trail on him was far riskier than the 32-year-old reinsman could have known.

“I didn’t know he [Muscle Mountain] had galloped let alone lost that much,” said Williamson.

“But when he came looking for the lead he came fast so I wouldn’t have tried to stay in front anyway, so it worked out well.”

Once he caught the field, Muscle Mountain had to be launched by driver Ben Hope and while Williamson didn’t know he was conceding the lead to a horse who would later peak, the odds-on favourite got to the top of the straight before he exhaled and Love N The Port used the Alexandra Park passing lane to claim the $180,000 great race.

Oscar Bonavena was a strong second, Eurokash a luckless third and Muscle Mountain’s fourth will go down as one of NZ harness racing’s greatest modern day defeats.