Following a five-year hiatus from training, Matamata horseman Peter Rudkin made a winning return at Pukekohe on Wednesday courtesy of Market Place in the TAB 1200.

“I left the South Island five years ago when racing was a bit tough,” Rudkin said. “I was from Cambridge, so I came back here, and I have been pottering around.

“I have been driving trucks for Te Akau Racing and I asked Glenn (Old, trainer) if he had a horse suitable for the South Island as I was looking to lease one to have with Kenny Rae. About two months ago he said Market Place was a bread and butter horse up here who would be ideal for the South Island, so I said I would take him.

“I got him about a month ago, gave him a week off and he has come out and done that. I was more impressed than I expected.”

Initially earmarked to head to New Plymouth’s meeting on Friday to test the Central Districts waters, Rudkin changed tack when he was booked in to have surgery on Thursday.

“The plan was to go to New Plymouth on Friday to try the Central Districts as he has been racing up here, so I thought I would try weaker company down in the Central Districts,” he said. “But I am going for an operation tomorrow to get a pacemaker, so I had to change my plans and that is why the horse is up here.

“I have got a slow pulse which makes me tired and gives me aching muscles. I will be in and out tomorrow and they have told me to have a two-week break, so the horse will leave Pukekohe and got up to Kenny Rae’s at Ruakaka. He will work him up there and he will race at Ruakaka in two weeks and then I can get him back again.”

Initially from Waikato, Rudkin has always been involved with horses and decided to take out an owner-trainer license in the late nineties to work a couple of horses alongside his horse transport business.

“I was born and bred in Cambridge and I have always been a truck driver,” he said. “I started off as an owner-trainer in Cambridge and then I bought North-South Horse Transport off Colin Butler, so we carted horses for a few years,” he said.

“We sold that business and Kenny Rae and Donna Logan were sending a team of horses to Cup Week down at Riccarton, I was doing nothing, so I took them down and looked after them for the week. They came back and I stayed. I did about 12 years public training down in the South Island.”

Rudkin has now recorded 74 wins, one at stakes level, and has gone on to breed a Group One winner from one of his better performing mares.

“Dontpokethetiger was probably my best one, she was Group Two placed,” Rudkin said. “Dickens was another good one, and Rock On Rye won six races and I bred a Group One winner out of her in Rock On Wood.”

Rudkin sold Rock On Rye in-foal to Satono Aladdin for $60,000 on gavelhouse.com last year and while he is keen to get back into breeding, he said Market Place will keep him busy in the meantime.

“I haven’t got a broodmare at the moment, but I am looking at getting into it again because I do enjoy it, but he (Market Place) he will keep me occupied. I don’t know how good he is going to be, but I didn’t expect him to win in the North Island for me.”