Last race for the enigma that is Oscar Bonavena

By Michael Guerin

Mark Purdon has been doing this too long to believe in fairy tales.

They happen of course. Racing is perfectly set up for them, all those colliding story lines in the same race.

Usually somebody’s fairy tale is lying in there, waiting to be exposed by a win.

Alexandra Park has seen a couple in the last few weeks. Young Harrison Orange driving his first Group 1 winner beating his father Blair in the Anzac Cup two weeks ago.

Then just last Friday when Cath won the Northern Oaks to give 20-year-old reinsman Seth Hill his first Group 1 in the colours of his father Brendon.

The problem with racing fairy tales, you still need the horse power. 

They are, more often than not, a young man’s (sorry that should be young person’s) game.

It has been a long time since Oscar Bonavena was young.

The mercurial trotter runs his last race in the $200,000 Reharvest Rowe Cup at Alexandra Park tomorrow night and for the first time in eight years harness racing won’t have Oscar.

Remarkable for a horse born when Barack Obama was still President of the United States, Oscar is third favourite to make the farewell win fairy tale come true.

The 10-year-old has become part of our racing lives, one of the few horses in the country whose name can be shortened to one word without a shadow of a doubt who you are talking about.

A brilliant juvenile who won his first race before being purchased for then huge money by champion trainer Mark Purdon, Oscar then became his own mini series of drama.

He exploded onto the scene with his greyhound like frame and whirling legs, so fast that he started odds-on in the 2019 Dominion Handicap at just his 13th start. 

He finished 10th, beaten 44m.

That started a love-hate relationship for punters as Oscar at his best was dazzling and at his worst a punting Ponzi scheme: you put your money in but never got it back.

“The problem started with his knees first,” says trainer-driver Purdon.

“Then he had other issues and some of those created secondary issues.”
 
At one stage Purdon gave up and sent Oscar to Regan Todd to be beach trained. Didn’t work.

Purdon’s son Nathan has had a go at training Oscar and found him a Rubik’s Cube of frustration, get one side right and a problem appears somewhere else.

In 2022 Oscar went an entire year racing at the top level without winning a race.

The horse named after a boxer was on the canvas.

Then in late 2023 his personal renaissance started, seemingly out of nowhere.

The body felt better, the mind followed suit.

He smashed his opponents in our greatest trot, the Dominion at Addington, starting a sequence of six stunning wins, four at Group level.

Oscar capped a career-defining year by beating Australian champion Just Believe in the NZ Free-For-All at Addington in 2024, proving that when he was sound and happy he has the motor of a champion.

“He is a great horse but he would have been a champion without all the issues he has had,” says Purdon, the man best qualified in New Zealand racing to use the C word.

“But to his credit even when we have counted him out he has bounced back.

“And when he was at his peak and you could drive him for one run, it was an amazing feeling when he sprinted.”

The last time that sprint carried Oscar all the way to the winner’s circle was on the grass at Motukarara on September 21 when he came from a 30m handicap and seemingly hopeless position to street his opponents.

He hasn’t won in 14 starts since. 

Purdon has known racing’s undefeated opponent — time — had caught up with Oscar for a while, the desire to run past inferior rivals waning.

“He is still healthy and seems to be enjoying it but it just isn’t the horse he used to be,” says Purdon.

“He could run top 3 this Friday, who knows, maybe better but I don’t really expect him to win.”

But Oscar has picked the right Rowe Cup to bid us farewell in, with few rivals in this race in his class if he produces even 90 per cent of his best.

If he can turn that clock back one more time, not even for the entire race, for just the last 30 seconds, he can win.

Will it happen? Probably not.

But it only takes one hero to make a fairy tale.

OSCAR BONAVENA

Who: 10-year-old trotting great.
Breeding: Majestic Son-Now’s The Moment.
Trainers: Mark Purdon, Nathan Purdon, Hayden Cullen, Regan Todd, Phil Williamson.
Career stats: 107 starts, 36 wins, 34 placings.
Earnings: $1,401,505.
Last dance: Tomorrow night’s Reharvest Rowe Cup at Alexandra Park.
What next: Oscar has already started his stallion career.