The All Stars stable has touched down in Invercargill and all signs point to it making a big impact in Southland’s first group 1 race.
The Mark Purdon and Hayden Cullen stable has a huge hand to play in the Invercargill Cup with open-class stars Self Assured and Spankem.
Having competed successfully at every harness racing carnival in Australasia that matters, Purdon is looking forward to being a part of Southland’s history-making day.
"Absolutely — it has been a while since I have been down here," Purdon said.
"I have always enjoyed coming down in the past and the hospitality here is the best in the world."
Self Assured was impressive in his last-start second at Addington early this month to early Invercargill Cup favourite B D Joe when, after sitting parked on a hot speed, he went down fighting.
"I am really happy with his training. On Thursday we gave him a run-along and he trained really nice," Purdon said.
Spankem has placed in five Auckland or New Zealand Cups. And he gets a significant advantage that might help him break his maiden at the 3200m distance — a smaller field size.
"You would think if he had the last run at them he would be running past most of them," Purdon said.
Today the Steve and Amanda Telfer-trained B D Joe gets a 10m head-start on the two 20m back-markers.
