Oscar Bonavena’s highly predictable win in Cambridge makes him the 16th Mark Purdon -trained horse to become a millionaire-a quite remarkable record for a quite remarkable trainer.
Oscar is just the second trotter on the list after I Can Doosit,the 9th best stable earner on $1.44m
To be fair Pride of Petite ($811,000) would be therre had she been racing in the present era and several others who are close to the $1m are in the same situation.
Top of the list-and always will be- is of course Lazarus (3.8m*) while Smolda ($2.55m) and Self Assured ($2.41m) are the only others to top $2m.Again Auckland Reactor (1.83m*) would have joined that club in the current era. A remarkable statistic in view of that is that Il Vicolo ($1.58m) is at No 7 still among the all time stake earners for the stable even tho his career ended 25 years ago.
Oscar is of course at the lowest rating at the moment but with four others with earnings of less than $1.1m a successful Australian campaign could boost his rating. He won just over $15,000 for the Phil Williamson stable before being purchased by Mark and Chris Ryder for a substantial sum near the end of his two year old career.
Mark who has felt his expertise in the cart has been blunted by lack of racing practice in recent times,drove a superb race even given the certainty of the outcome moving in and out of potential pockets with all the aplomb of the master reinsman he is.
The reduction of the distance in the heats for the same night Great Southern Star heats and final on February 1 has been a factor in Mark leaning toward a trip to Australia. The formula has had its critics and the heats have been reduced to one mile.A final decision will be confirmed in the next few days, Don’t Stop Dreaming’s defeat in the Flying MIle,while honourable raising some query over his Australian trip at this time.
NB An * indicates a sum won when in training at Rolleston. Lazarus won over $4m in total the balance in North America.