Perfect night for Kentuckiana Lodge

By Joshua Smith, Harness News Desk

The newly formed training partnership of Nathan Purdon and Chrissie Dalgety is going from strength-to-strength.

The pair took just two horses to Addington Raceway on Friday night and recorded a perfect result, landing a winning double with Alta Sensation and Im A Gigolo.

It doubled their season tally to four wins from just 12 starts and they are rapt with the way their partnership has begun.

“It’s been great and hopefully it continues,” Dalgety said. “Two starts for two winners, you can’t beat that.”

Alta Sensation kicked off proceedings when taking out the Airpark Canterbury Mobile Pace (1980m) by three-quarters of a length over Chubby Checker, with a further 3-3/4 lengths back to Off The Edge in third.

The son of Somebeachsomewhere was pushed forward early by junior driver Sarah O’Reilly to take an early lead, which she subsequently relinquished to take the trail behind Chubby Checker. The pair were able to take advantage of the passing lane and comfortably accounted for their rivals.

“He was perfectly driven by Sarah,” Dalgety said. “Alta Sensation has been working well and his last few starts had been good, so we were certainly hoping for good things and then the race panned out perfectly.”

Just three races later Dalgety and Purdon were back in the winner’s circle with in-form four-year-old Im A Gigolo.

The son of Sweet Lou had pleased his connections with his two recent placings and finally rewarded them with a victory in the IRT – Your Horse. Our Passion. Mobile Pace (1980m).

“He has certainly improved,” Dalgety said. “We changed a few things around with him as he was a bit disappointing a few months ago and I think we have got on top of everything with him.

“We were thrilled with him last week and he just topped it off tonight. That was very pleasing.”

While Dalgety was pleased with the stable’s results on Friday night, she admitted she shared a sigh of relief with her fellow Cantabrian trainers after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement earlier in the evening that the region would remain in Level 2.

With Auckland still under Level 3 restrictions, Dalgety said she is feeling slightly anxious about whether Group One winner Krug’s northern campaign will occur later this month.

“We are a little bit on edge waiting on what will happen with COVID-19, but I am pretty pleased that we can keep racing,” she said.

“We want to head up to Auckland in a few weeks, so we will just have to see how that pans out.

“We are going to take Krug up for the Sires Stakes and the Harness Millions Sales Series. We have got a heat at Addington next Friday night, so we are hoping to send him up on a truck after that heat.

“It’s just week-by-week at the moment and we are just hoping it goes ahead.”