Oscar Bonavena upsets the champ in Free For All

[Wandering Eyes]

By Michael Guerin

There was a lot of head shaking going on in the Addington stabling block after Oscar Bonavena finally restored some level of New Zealand harness racing pride on Friday.

The reigning Trotter of the Year raced like it for the first time in months when he sling-shotted Aussie hero Just Believe in the $100,000 New Zealand Trotting Free-For-All.

After Muscle Mountain led and kept running Just Believe had to race parked and a pearler of a drive from Blair Orange saw Oscar Bonavena stalking him on his back.

At the 400m it looked like Muscle Mountain had them all in trouble before his lack of recent racing saw him peak and Just Believe gathered himself and raced to the lead .

But if there is one open class trotter in Australasia you don’t want sitting on your back in that situation it is a healthy and happy Oscar.

When he let down he was simply too fast, reminding us what a weapon his raw speed has been during his rollercoaster career.

There have been times it felt like we would never see the best of Oscar Bonavena and entire years when he struggled to win a race.

So to bounce back to something like that best and beat a champion had both his trainers Mark and Nathan Purdon shaking their heads.

“It is so satisfying to see him race like that again, he has been such a wonderful old horse,” said Nathan Purdon.

Oscar Bonavena will now return north with Mark Purdon this weekend and spend much of the summer being trained at the Matamata galloping track, where Purdon believes he can keep him soundest.

“We have the soft surface there to work him on and the pool to swim him in,” says Mark Purdon.

“So he can race around Alexandra Park and Cambridge. But we are so proud of him because he just keeps turning up after all these seasons.”

Also shaking his head was Greg Sugars, driver of Just Believe who knew a day like this had to come.

“Eventually he was going to have to race parked with the wrong horse on his back and today was that day,” said the Victorian.

“But he was very brave and at least he wasn’t on Tuesday,” he said in reference to the Dominion they won on Cup Day, worth four times more than Friday’s 1980m mobile.

Sugars and his wife Jess now have some thinking to do because they are torn between staying in New Zealand for the next month and heading back to Sydney to try for an Inter Dominion threepeat.

“We are going to need to think about that and quickly,” said Sugars.

“The other day we were certain we were staying but we have a few other things to weigh up so to be honest I don’t know what to do now.”

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