Strathcona spearheads Purvis' bid for treble

By Glenn Davis

Megan Purvis leads a busy life as a hobby trainer in Townsville, but she wouldn’t want it any other way.

Purvis trains a small team while working at Townsville State High School where she’s been a personal assistant to the school’s principal and vice principal for the past three years.

Her day starts at about 2:30am each morning to feed and work her horses before heading home around 7am to prepare for her day job at school.

The St George-born Purvis grew up at Talwood in regional Queensland before she started working as a stable hand for leading Toowoomba trainer Lindsay Hatch and Mark Currie.

She also rode trackwork at Toowoomba for Graham Banks and Patrick Sexton before moving from Dalby to Townsville to start her own training career.

Purvis will have three starters at Townsville on Thursday with Strathcona lining up in the Open Handicap over 1400 metres and Silver City in the Benchmark 55 Handicap over 1200 metres.

I Swim I Win makes up the trio in the QTIS Maiden over 1400 metres.

Strathcona has been a bargain buy for Purvis who picked him up for $13,000 when the son of Vancouver was put up for sale by New South Wales trainer Brett Cavanough.

The seven-year-old has started 59 times for nine wins and 14 placings but only five of those victories were with Purvis.

Strathcona is coming off a last start sixth, beaten less than five lengths, by the Graham Hughes-trained Burraneer Buoy in a 1400 metre Benchmark race at Townsville on January 6.

“He’ll soon be an eight-year-old so he’s on the verge of retirement,” the 28-year-old Purvis said.

“The plan is to see how he goes in his next few starts and if he’s still racing well enough he’ll continue to race.

“I had an apprentice ride him last start but he’s not really an apprentice’s horse and he was a bit unlucky.

“He should go a lot better this time, but I want to get him up to 1600 metres.”

Purvis believes Silver City is a strong chance of winning for the first time for her stable since she bought him off Currie for $3,000.

Silver City has started four times for Purvis including his last start fourth to the Matthew McGuire-trained Kobayastar over 1300 metres at Townsville on February 3.

“He was supposed to run at Townsville when the meeting was washed out recently,” she said.

“I think he’s a big chance this week.”