The maiden hurdlers put on a thrilling spectacle in the opening two races at Hastings on Saturday, with the first of a pair of photo finishes won by promising local jumper Dictation.

Paul Nelson and Corrina McDougal have a stellar record at the annual Hawke’s Bay Hunt meeting, winning at least one race on the card every year since 2019 and they were swift in picking up the Birchleigh Polo Club Maiden Hurdle (2500m).

A son of Tavistock, Dictation collected a pair of victories on the flat in 2022 and made a commendable debut over the fences at Te Aroha earlier this month, finishing a close-up second to Jesko. Heading to Hastings, he was rated a $3.60 second-favourite behind a strongly-backed Semper Magico ($2.20), who was on jumping debut after nine victories and a stakes placing on the flat.

Semper Magico’s inexperience was evident from the opening fence where he was wayward, but soon settled into stride under Portia Matthews while Dictation was all business up-front in the hands of Hamish McNeill.

Dictation sat outside Rakanui through the mid-stages while Semper Magico tracked quietly in behind, and as the pressure came on at the 300m, the two favourites set to fight it out in a head-bobbing battle, with Dictation getting his head down to score by the barest of margins over Semper Magico.

McNeill was thrilled to prevail in the photo-finish, earning his seventh win for the training combination.

“He gave me a great feel at Te Aroha but just ran into a nice one in Jesko with (Shaun) Fannin,” he said.

“He’s a lovely horse, he jumped perfectly and he did get the last a little bit wrong, but he’s tough and I rode him home.

“It (Semper Magico) is going to be a nice jumper for the future and has plenty of flat form, but you can’t beat Paul on Hawke’s Bay day.”

Bred by the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, Dictation is out of a Volksraad mare Solo, and was purchased for $20,000 by Nelson on gavelhouse.com in 2022 for the I See Red Syndicate after starting his career under Glen Harvey.

“We were rapt with the run, it was only his second hurdle race so he did it pretty nicely. The way he fought back was extra good,” Nelson said.

“We’re finding it hard to plan another start with him because the meetings and venues are getting changed so often, so no one really knows where we’re going yet. We’ll just have to see what comes up.”

Saturday also marked 20 years since Nelson claimed his first success training for the syndicate at the Hawke’s Bay meeting, with Just A Swagger winning the maiden hurdle contest in 2004 before going on to win two Grand National Hurdles (4200m) and a Grand National Steeplechase (5600m).  

The stable went close to claiming their third Te Whangai Romneys Hawke’s Bay Hurdles (3100m) since joining forces with Taika, who pushed star hurdler Berry The Cash all the way in the feature to go down by a half-head.

“We were very pleased with him, Berry The Cash has shown he is a pretty useful horse and it was only Taika’s second run, while he had another two races (Awapuni and Waikato) that he had won this year. He was pretty forward,” Nelson said.

“We’ll probably keep him and Nedwin (stablemate) separate going forward, getting two riders for one race is a bit difficult but we’ll have to see what we can do.”

Nelson was pleased with how the Hastings track held up despite recent torrid weather conditions on the East Coast of the North Island resulting in a true heavy 10.

“The track appeared to play pretty fairly both on and off the rail all day, and I thought it looked good. There was a bit of top coming off but it definitely didn’t get too muddy,” he said.