“First runner, first win and a race I’ve really wanted to win for a long time”
Purrfect Deal served up the perfect result for former steward turned Gold Coast trainer Michael Costa in his first attempt at the Grafton Cup.
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Thirteen years ago Michael Costa was a racing steward based in Grafton when Twin Wing won the Grafton Cup. On Thursday he returned to his “home away from home” to watch Purrfect Deal win the $200,000 feature of the July Racing Carnival, this time as the winning trainer.
After winning the Grafton Cup Prelude by 3.5 lengths 11 days earlier, the four-year-old mare started $3.40 favourite for the 2350m event.
Jockey Ben Thompson settled Purrfect Deal into third before hitting the front with 200m to go, and holding off a late challenge from Matthew Dunn trained Laure Me In (Jim Byrne, $9) with Bjorn Baker trained Parry Sound (Michael Cahill, $8) third.
“We had to do a little bit of work early, which wasn’t ideal, but when the pace went on she got into a nice position,” Costa said.
“She probably had to get going a little bit earlier than we hoped on the worst part of the track, but the little mare was the best horse on the day.”
In his first attempt at a Grafton Cup, the Gold Coast trainer described the achievement as his own “Melbourne Cup”.
“I moved to Grafton about 13 years ago and had about a year and a half here as a steward and it became a home away from home, so it’s a home track grand final in a race I really wanted to win,” Costa said.
“It’s almost like a Melbourne Cup win for me personally, so we’ll be down at the Clocktower (Hotel) tonight giving it a fair nudge.”
Purchased for just $16,000, the filly by Dundeel out of Our Kitty has now collected $235, 790 in prizemoney with seven wins from 11 starts for its connections.
“Unfortunately a lot of the owners couldn’t come because they’re based in Sydney and around the country, but they’re a good bunch of owners who really supported the stable since our beginning, so it’s good to get them the result with a cheap filly that’s going to be worth a pretty penny as a broodmare,” Costa said.
Meanwhile it was a true local who saluted $75,000 Sir James Kirby Handicap (1000m), as Jule’s Spirit (Luke Rolls, $3.90) delivered Grafton trainer John Shelton’s first win in the time-honoured sprint and his first win of the 2021 carnival.
The five-year-old gelding mowed down Scott Singleton trained Remlaps Gem (Christian Reith, $2.00fav) in the straight to win by a length, with Sue Grills trained Attila (Ashley Morgan,$13) in third.
“We had a beautiful run, everything fell into place,” Shelton said.
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