Kosciuszko adds mile string to his bow as he makes it a straight eight
Rising star Lim’s Kosciuszko (Kermadec) turned his first attempt at the mile into a one-act affair after he careered away to his eighth win in as many starts at Kranji yesterday.
The Daniel Meagher-trained hotpot showed his usual abundance of speed under Danny Beasley to hold off six classy rivals and post a compelling win the Kranji Stakes A race over a mile in a time of 1 min 34.07 secs, just 0.79 second away from the course record time set by Magneto (Footstepsinthesand) in 2015.
“We tested him over this because the Kranji Mile is coming up, and he passed, so we’ll go for the main race,” said a delighted Meagher in the immediate aftermath.
“He relaxed pretty well, though he was taken on pretty early I thought, but he showed his true class. I was a bit nervous for sure, but it was a pretty soft win today.”
Meagher added Lim’s Kosciuszko would now most likely attempt to extend his unbeaten run in a Class 1 race over 1400 metres on April 30.
While yesterday’s win may have looked like a breeze to many, Beasley thought his mount was fresh and “not at his best”.
“Today wasn’t his best performance because he had an interrupted preparation,” said the winning rider.
“He’s got that sprint attitude because that’s how he’d been trained, and he’s done a really good job because it’s been five to six weeks between runs.
“We’ve also given him two trials (before the race) to keep him up to mark. Daniel has changed up his training a bit and presented him today as best as he could.
“I wasn’t worried about other runners but just concentrating on him because he was running a bit too fresh, so I wanted him to settle a bit better. I did not want to fight him, so if he wanted to go a bit quicker, I’d let him be.
“He can be a bit better than today. He deserves the chance to go to the Kranji Mile and the Derby.”
Nature on Song for maiden win
The small but tough Song Of Nature (All Too Hard) opened his account at his third start when claiming the restricted maiden over 1600 metres when the three-year-old responded well to the urgings of his rider Koh Teck Huat to get up late and defeat Bingo Master (Proisir) by half a length.
Winning trainer Jason Ong said he had been quietly confident about the gelding’s chances running an improved race going into the mile event.
“He is a handy horse looking for the distance,” Ong said of his 11th winner of the season.
“It’s a small field, so I went in with a fair bit of confidence in him.
“We don’t have a lot of restricted maiden races over these sorts of distances, so we planned for this, and I put in quite a bit of work into him.
“He is a tough horse; he took it well and did everything right.”
Koh went on to bag a double two races later when he steered the Jerome Tan-trained Per Incrown (Per Incanto) to a hard-fought win in the first division of the Class 5 race over 1200 metres, taking his seasonal tally to six wins.
Double for Baertschiger
Shane Baertschiger was among the winners on yesterday’s card, the trainer sending out a double late in the day.
Alexander (Zacinto) initiated the brace when the four-year-old got off the mark at the 12th time of asking by taking out the second division of the Class 5 race over 1200 metres, before King’s Command (Tavistock) registered his sixth win in 17 starts, and first since October last year, when scoring in the Class 3 race (1400m).