You may not have seen the best of champion harness racing pacer Lazarus just yet. Trainer-driver Mark Purdon is predicting something special in the $750,000 Miracle Mile.
YOU may not have seen the best of champion pacer Lazarus just yet.
As breathtaking as his record-breaking Hunter Cup win was at Melton last Saturday night, trainer-driver Mark Purdon is predicting something special in the $750,000 Group 1 Miracle Mile at Menangle on February 24.
Asked what Lazarus could run for a mile around Menangle, Purdon said: “He’d go a one-minute 46 seconds mile if needed.”
Remember, the track and Australasian mile race record is 1min 47.5sec set by Lazarus’ former stablemate Have Faith In Me in the 2016 Miracle Mile.
Like every Miracle Mile hopeful, Lazarus will need to qualify for a berth in the race via a qualifying sprint at Menangle on Saturday week.
“All those Group 1 wins are great victories and he’s had a lot of them, but that one the other night really made a statement,” he said. “It showed everyone he was clearly the best horse going around.
“I’ve said for a long time he’s the best I’ve trained.”
Lazarus enjoyed a lazy Sunday after his Hunter Cup win then travelled to Sydney on Monday.
“One of the great things about him is how well he bounces back from hard runs like that,” Purdon said. “Once he’d settled in here (Sydney on Tuesday), he was really bright and full of himself again. You wouldn’t know he’d had a hard run.”
“It’s not an issue,” he said. “He won the Chariots Of Fire here and when he ran third in that Miracle Mile, he probably wasn’t as good as I’d like to have had him on that night.”
Lazarus is trying to become the first pacer since the Miracle Mile started in 1967 to win the sport’s big four — NZ Cup, Inter Dominion, Hunter Cup and Miracle Mile — in the same season.