Nymbal primed and ready for Sires heat
Garrick Knight - Raceform • September 4th, 2025 4:00 PM • 4 min read
That’s the opinion of his co-trainer Gareth Hughes ahead of the juvenile’s $30,000 Woodlands Stud Sires Stakes Heat 1 tilt at Alexandra Park on Friday night.
After some strong trial form, Nymbal was backed into favouritism in a similar field a fortnight ago but was beaten into third behind the Mark and Nathan Purdon-trained Special Occasion.
“We were really, really happy with the run,” said Hughes, who trains in partnership with his father Brian. “It was a case of either giving him another trial or going to the races and we felt he would benefit more from the latter option.”
Hughes reports the son of Lazarus has tightened up appreciably since that resuming effort. He expects a strong performance this week.
“He was near enough but was going to take a lot of improvement from it and he’s come through it really well. We’ll leave tactics up to Ben (Butcher, driver), but he has options from the draw (five).”
Hughes is hoping Nymbal can qualify for the Gr. 1 Sires Stakes Final, which is held at Addington on New Zealand Cup Day in November.
“The South Island would be the plan if he can finish in the placings this week, because there is also the Harness Millions Final at Addington next month too.”
Another Purdon horse in Georgie Best looks like the hardest to beat after his brave fourth in that same race a fortnight ago, while War Chief, unbeaten at the trials, is an interesting debutant for Barry Purdon and Scott Phelan.
The Hughes partnership has Seaside Boss resuming in the night’s final event, some 15 months after he last raced. The three-year-old is big on ability but has been struck down by soreness issues.
“He had a couple of niggles to start with, and we weren’t really able to pinpoint what it was, even with x-rays.
“So we tipped him out, brought him back in and he was all but ready for the Sires Stakes last year when he went sore again. We ended up getting the dye put through him and it revealed two little hairline fractures.”
After a long period of convalescence, Seaside Boss resumes with two workouts under the belt, one each at Pukekohe and Alexandra Park.
“He’s going to improve with the race because he’s been off the scene for so long, but I thought trial at Auckland was pretty good.”
In other news, Hughes confirmed that stable star Captain Sampson is back hoppling after a good spell following his last start in April’s Northern Derby. He started second favourite behind eventual winner Marketplace in last year’s Sires Stakes Final, but his southern trip was disappointing, and he hasn’t won in five further starts.
“He’s quite a big boy and across the 12 months he only had about six weeks out in total, and we think it all just caught up with him.”
