Racing: Myers seeks southern gold

Kevin Myers. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today

It's almost appropriate that trainers Kevin Myers and Michael Pitman will have an old-fashioned gunfight in Kumara tomorrow.

The pair are facing a fair-dinkum showdown in the time-honoured $30,000 Kumara Gold Nuggets.

The National Business Review is gone as a sponsor and the new sponsors, Vernon and Vazey Track Parts, give the race a generic feel, even though Kumara is not the wild west town it perhaps once was.

The last of the Kumara pubs closed its doors two years ago and the 300 permanent residents now travel to Greymouth or Hokitika to get a beer on the wood.

But there will be thousands on the Kumara racetrack tomorrow for the annual meeting that Rob Muldoon saved from the scrapheap more than 20 years ago,.

Kumara as a racetrack was under threat, but it's said the hospitality Muldoon absorbed at the races one day was such that the Nuggets was from that point guaranteed its survival.

The weather tomorrow is predicted to be stunning, but heavy rain Thursday morning on an already slow Kumara surface will see a heavy track.

Kumara was built on a swamp and the going tomorrow will be tough.

That's not something that will worry Kevin Myers' pair Titch and Sparking, by respective wet track stallions Lord Ballina and Montjeu.

Titch has had seven starts on heavy tracks for three wins and two placings and Sparking 23 races for eight wins and seven places.

Kevin Myers does not travel his horses unless he has them ready to win.

Which is bad news for Michael Pitman, who has been winning everything in the South Island over the holiday period. Pitman's grand old stayer Borninthestates won this race in 2008 and finished second to Quantum Dude in 2009.

He has topweight here with 58.5kg, but that may not be his biggest disadvantage - he has had nine runs on heavy footing for just one placing and his 15 starts in slow have produced just one victory.

Pitman's Peyow Peyow has come to form at the right time and his win under 53kg on New Year's Day was solid.

He comes in with the same weight this time. The January 1 win was accomplished on a dead surface, but he is just as effective in the wet.

But the Myers pair will be tough to hold out.

Titch is versatile. He won three hurdle races straight in Melbourne last winter then came home, won over 1600m at Wanganui, then over 2000m at Riccarton before tackling the 3200m New Zealand Cup and going under by a head to Showcause who has since won the City Of Auckland Cup on January 1.

That's great form for a race like this.

Sparking could be the surprise.

His last win was in a hurdle race in Victoria, but in his last start before he left for Australia, in mid-May, he won an open handicap at Taranaki beating Solid Billing and Sand Hawk, both of whom could start favourite in this race.

He last raced on August 1, but Myers will have him fit. James McDonald rides Titch and Jillian Morris is engaged for Sparking.

KUMARA NUGGETS

* The charismatic, quirky race is no less interesting than usual.

* It has developed into a real North v South clash between trainers Kevin Myers and Michael Pitman.

* Myers has two runners to Pitman's three, but may still hold the edge.