Rob Heathcote, who trained one of the Hong Kong champion’s two winners in Sydney last Saturday, said he had given his horse ‘an absolute pearler’
Zac Purton won’t be worried by taking flak from a ‘Pommy woman’, according to a top trainer who said the Hong Kong champion had given his horse “an absolute pearler” at Sydney last Saturday.
The under-fire Australian was principally at the meeting at Royal Randwick to ride superstar sprinter Ka Ying Rising, who took out the £10m Everest, the world’s richest turf race.
On the same card also won the Group 3 Sydney Stakes on Rothfire. Yet it was his performance on British raider Lake Forest, in the £2.5 million King Charles III Stakes, which has attracted all the headlines since after Maureen Haggas, wife of trainer William, said he had ridden like a ‘big sissy’.
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The four-year-old who raced in the colours of Tony Bloom, owner of Premier League club Brighton, finished last of 12 runners.
The clip of Maureen Haggas’s interview with RacingTV has gone viral with 1.1 million views of her verdict on the ride, recorded on X.
“As far as I’m concerned Lake Forest never had a race,” she said. “It was about the worst ride I think I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I was appalled, absolutely appalled.
“We went all that way and, I mean I don’t know Zac Purton at all, but it was just dreadful. It was so disappointing because everyone knows he is a horse you have to tell him he’s got to do it. He knew that and he was told it and he just sat there like a big sissy.”
Purton has brushed off the criticism, telling Mirror Online: “I had a nice laugh, she’d make a good comedian.”
On Friday, Racenet published a video of Rob Heathcote, the trainer of Rothfire, eulogising Purton as “one of the world’s leading riders”.
“Zac has gone out there, barrier 16 of 16 and put my horse sixth, three back with cover, waited until the exact right moment before he pushed the go button and won by 0.3 of a length. An absolute pearler, one of the best rides I’ve had in a feature race in my 28 year career.”
He added: “I just wanted to say thank you Zac, I know you copped a bit of flak from your ride on some Pommy woman’s horse later in the day.
“Sometimes you get it wrong, but most of the time you get it right. But I’m sure you are not too concerned, you are too busy counting your cash.”