Big night for father-son combo in Northern Oaks

By Michael Guerin

Brendon Hill is going to resist the temptation to train two youngsters at once heading into tonight’s $100,000 Pascoes Northern Oaks at Alexandra Park (7.37pm).

Hill prepares talented filly Cath for the Group 1 in which she will start from barrier 1 and has the gate speed to use it.

But the classic has even more meaning for Hill as Cath will be driven by his son Seth, having his first Alexandra Park drive in the biggest race of his career.

Winning an Oaks with Cath would mean plenty for Hill but winning it with his son would mean more. 

But he only trains one of them.

“Seth and I live together so we talk every day and obviously we will discuss tactics but at the end of the day he is the driver,” says Hill.

“So I will try and not fill his head with too much stuff and let him go out there and drive her how she feels.

“Being our son of course I want to see him succeed but he is doing very well on his own so I will concentrate on training the horse.” 

Hill, who has trained some outstanding pacers including the great Monkey King, knows this is the stage of a pacer’s career when they start to stand up and be counted, especially with tonight’s Oaks seeing the fillies extend out to 2700m mobile.

“She had a hard run last start when she was attacked in front and only just run down by Secret Wish, who is a really fast filly and will be the one to beat again this Friday,” says Hill.

“But the good horses bounce out of those runs and get better and I trained her like a good filly on Monday morning.

“I gave her two decent mile heats and she handled it really well.”

About the only thing that has gone wrong this week was Cath’s flight from Christchurch to Auckland being delayed a day but that hasn’t affected her training and some of her key rivals were in the same situation.

Cath should have the option to lead early from the ace tonight and even if there is significant pressure Seth has the secondary option of letting those horses go and heading back around to the front.

What he won’t want is Secret Wish or even the likes of All Of Me getting in front of Cath in any first lap shuffle up, although that looks unlikely.

With a huge majority of the Derbys and Oaks run at Alexandra Park being won by horses on the markers pegs Cath really should start favourite tonight as she is likely to cover less ground than Secret Wish, who like many others at the top end of the market has drawn the second line.

Secret Wish does have blazing speed and genuine x-factor though so if there are fireworks early she would seem the most likely beneficiary.

While barrier 1 in the Oaks still has the potential to cause Cath some issues it should be nothing but an advantage for Jumal in tonight’s other classic, the $200,000 Woodlands Stud Northern Derby.

Jumal is not only the best three-year-old pacer in the country but plenty of those ranked in the chasing pack are down on their best form, particularly Sires’ Stakes winner Freeze Frame.

It is hard to envisage anything but Jumal leading and winning with the race to see who can trail him early perhaps determining who finishes second.