Puntura aims for repeat win in Manawatū Challenge Stakes at Trentham

Puntura winning the Thorndon Mile at Trentham in January.

It is not often a Group 2 weight-for-age race is considered a drop in class but when Puntura steps on to the track at Trentham tomorrow it will be his easiest assignment in over a year.

And that includes winning this race, the Manawatū Challenge Stakes last year.

Puntura may not be one of New Zealand’s pin-up gallopers but few would have had a more testing last 12 months.

In that time he has started eight times, five of them in Group 1s, twice at Group 2 level including beating Belclare in this race a year ago and he went to Australia for the All Star Mile, in which he took on Pride Of Jenni and Mr Brightside.

He not only won this race but the Thorndon Mile in January, and trainer Robbie Patterson says he is back to his best for tomorrow.

“He has raced in some really strong races including the Group 1 TAB Mile last start and he was really good in that [fourth],” says Patterson.

“He has been working great and I think he will possie up just off what will be a good speed and he is going to be really hard to beat.”

Patterson has some inside info on that potential speed map as he also trains Connor O’Ceirin, who he says will replicate his tactics from last start and head for the front, which with a freegoer like Town Cryer also in the race could set it up nicely for Puntura.

The danger has to be Perfect Scenario, who beat Puntura home when third to his fourth in the TAB Mile and gets Opie Bosson in the saddle tomorrow.

Patterson thinks he has a progressive filly in Leica Lucy (R5, No 4) who can get black type in the Eulogy Stakes which has drawn a very even bunch of three-year-old fillies as the biggest names in that crop are still returning from their summer spells or waiting for Ellerslie next week.

But Patterson has a warning for punters wanting to jump on his stable rep and favourite The Underbelly in the $120,000 Manawatū Cup tomorrow.

“I think he is still a run or two away from his best,” he said.

“He missed some lead-up races with abandonments and other things and I reckon this race will bring him on.

“I reckon he will peak for the Wellington Cup and while he is still good enough to win I wouldn’t have him favourite.”

While Trentham will be Patterson’s main focus tomorrow, he suggests punters follow his rep in Race 6 at Te Rapa.

“We have a horse called Last Souvenir going there and I think he is a pretty nice maiden.”

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.