Champion trainer Mark Purdon can see the funny side of these final chapters of Oscar Bonavena’s remarkable racing career.
The 10-year-old millionaire becomes the first horse to contest the Cambridge trotting slot race for three straight years in the $530,000 TAB Trot tonight, equalling the feat of his pacing stablemate Self Assured, who raced in the first three Race By Grins as it was called back then.
Not that Oscar Bonavena has had as much luck as Self Assured, having been luckless the first year and then disgracing himself by charging into a full-blown gallop as the mobile left last year.
That is Oscar: brilliant one week, okay others and a downright pest when he wants to be.
It was the last version of Oscar who turned up in the Flying Mile last Thursday as he galloped early before staging a huge recovery for third, showing the motor is still there but so too is the stubborn streak.
“That is just him these days,” Purdon admits.
“He should be over all that nonsense but sometimes when he gets in clear air, he wants to go too fast.
“He has a bit on him to control that and sometimes it works but if he gets too worked up he can resent it and that can also set him up.”
Team Oscar, which is Purdon and stablemate foreman Tony Shaw, were getting the great old horse re-shod this week with Purdon suggesting some more weight in his front shoes may help him stay balanced out of the mobile.
“Tony said, though, that he trotted well off the gate wearing plates [light shoes] recently,” Purdon explains.
“I said to him, ‘Tony at his age, he should be able to trot around in gumboots and not gallop’,” Purdon laughs.
It won’t seem quite so funny if Oscar throws one of his temper tantrums at the start tomorrow night but Purdon has a plan.
“He is generally better when you can find him a helmet to follow, so that will be the plan.”
Sitting and launching late may hardly be the ideal winning strategy if the genuine superstar Keayang Zahara is cruising along in front ready to peel off a 55-second last 800m but Purdon is realistic about what that would mean.
“At his age and against her, second would be a great result.
As for Akuta in the $1m Race by Sport Nation, Purdon says his one on the second line draw may be ideal.
“If Captains Knock can lead and we sit maybe three fence doing no work while they go hard, that would be ideal.
“That is the run we got with Chase A Dream last season and it enabled him to hit the line well for second.”
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.