AARON Purcell's imported jumper King Of Dudes will push ahead to the $200,000 Grand National Hurdle on August 7 after his gallant second placing in the $100,000 Drechsler Hurdle at Bendigo on Sunday.
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King Of Dudes, with Steven Pateman, in the saddle just failed by a short neck to overhaul the Darren Weir trained Zanteco with Gingerboy a half neck away in third place in the jumps feature.
Purcell said Pateman had put his hand up to ride the seven-year-old in the Grand National Hurdle.
"Steve was really excited with King Of Dudes run," the Warrnambool based trainer said. "Steve reckoned if the last hurdle had not been knocked down he would have probably won. He wants to ride King Of Dudes in the National. King Of Dudes carried five kilograms more than Zanteco so you can see it was a great effort by my bloke."
Gold Medals ran fourth in the Drechsler for Symon Wilde while Another Legend trained in Warrnambool by Amy McDonald finished in fifth place.
Champion New Zealand jumper Sea King won back-to-back Mosstropper Steeplechases when he defeated Gold A Plenty and Wells. Former top jockey and now successful trainer Patrick Payne trains Sea King in Australia for Kiwi trainer Kevin Myers.
Talented horseman Jamie Mott took the riding honors winning two of the four jumps races. He was successful on Western Kingdom and Zanteco.
