The harness racing season always throws up some rough results from time to time and in today's Group 1 $100,000 four year old Ruby at the Harness Jewels at Ashburton it almost happened again.
Hot favourite King Denny with Mark Purdon in the bike led from barrier one and kept up a steady tempo through the first 800 metres while a lot of his more favoured opposition did things wrong and were out of contention early.
Coming to the home turn the well supported Belles Son broke and from then on it looked like King Denny's race to lose.
Clear half way up the straight, suddenly the horse who had sat on his back the whole way Zachary Binx with Amanda Tomlinson in the bike appeared on his inside in the passing lane.
The closer it got to home the closer Zachiary Binx got but at the line he was still half a neck in arrears.
Poppymalda and Nathan Williamsom flew out of the pack late to grab third in front of an unlucky Harrysul
While King Denny paid $1:50 to win, Zachiary Binx paid a whopping $18.70 for a place.
Winning his second Harness Jewels by a small margin, the Majestic Son gelding trotted the mile in 1:55.9 with closing sectionals of 55.9 and 26.8
Mark Purdon was more relieved than anything post race.
" I was getting a bit worried the last bit."
" He just knocked off when he was clear and I had a bit of trouble getting him going again."
" He can do that every now and again but at least we still held on ," Mark said.
Amanda was smiling as though she had won the race.
" How close did I get," was all Amanda wanted to know post race
King Denny has had a great season mixing it with the very best in the latter half of the season and should be in for a big season at five.
King Denny was the fourth winner of the day for the Allstars training duo of Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen.
Harnesslink Media