23 August by Bruce Stewart Harnesslink
The win by pacing filly Arden’s Memory (Bettor’s Delight) at Addington tonight was tinged with sadness for the Stiven family of Tapanui who bred and own the harness racing filly.
Arden Lodge’s John and Judy Stiven lost their son Lee while he was in the UK in April 2020 and the horse is named in his memory.
The three year old is out of super mare Venus Serena and is owned by John, Judy, David, Scott, Kate and Danielle Stiven.
Driver Blair Orange took the Mark and Nathan Purdon trained filly forward early before handing up to Melody Banner.
The two fillies went to war down the straight with Arden’s Memory showing how brave she is, beating Melody Banner by half a length, with Ruby Roe storming home late for third just a head away.
“She’s got some of her mother’s qualities there. At Ashburton the other day (when she won) each time Blair asked her she just kept giving and it looked the same tonight,” John said.
Blair Orange gets to work on Arden’s Memory (Race Images Photo)
Arden’s Memory gets the win on the inside from Melody Banner and Ruby Roe coming down the outside (Race Images Photo)
Like a lot of Arden Lodge’s young stock Arden’s Memory was broken in by Canterbury horseman Grant Payne.
“Grant really liked her so we sent her to Nathan. She was taken to Auckland where she had that problem when she fibrillated. She had a spell after that and Nathan got her back in January. He trialled her. She just wasn’t 100% and we found she had a chip on her fetlock.”
The filly was operated on by Invercargill vet Brendon Bell.
“The operation was textbook. We gave her time to recover from that and I jogged her for about three weeks before she went back up (to Purdon’s).”
From there a plan was hatched for Arden’s Memory to have two trials prior to starting at Ashburton.
“It’s pretty cool that we made a plan that has come off.”
Stiven says his children and their partners are now in the market for tickets for the Group One Final and are pretty excited about it.
“I kept saying to the kids that if she goes good tonight, we know we’ve got a good horse. To go that good, I think we might have one now.”
Arden’s Memory and some of her winning owners (Race Images Photo)
To watch the race click here:
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