All Chasing Him

The Singapore Turf Club reports on Sunday's win by Chase:

The well-backed Chase came from behind to take the $60,000 Selangor Turf Club Trophy (1400m) under a light shower at Kranji on Sunday.

It was apprentice jockey Shafiq Rizuan's second consecutive win atop the Australian-bred gelding, with their previous partnership just under a month ago in the Novice race over 1200m on Mar 22.

The race began with half a dozen horses jostling for pole position. Eventually it was Pole Paradise (Nooresh Juglall), Thankfulness (Farick Tan) and Black Snow (Razali Zawari) who took the early lead.

Chase (Shafiq Rizuan) comes with a strong finish to claim Race 6 on Sunday.

Bhaskara, who shared joint $21 favouritism with Chase, started closing in on the leaders at the start of the turn, exchanging positions with Natural Nice (Rueven Ravindra) for much of the curve.

With the winning post in sight as the horses straightened, Chase started to make his move. With only 200m left, the galloper from Eight Eight One stable was still in third place, behind Hydro (Craig Newitt) and Pole Paradise.

But a frantic finish by the son of Nicconi ensured he completed the comeback one and a half lengths ahead of Bhaskara in the winning time of 1min 22.63secs.

“He was good. In the straight, he just kept going and going. Very good finisher,” said Shafiq.

Trainer Mark Walker was more cautious in his view of the race.

“The way the race panned out helped us quite a bit,” said the New Zealand trainer.

“We were not too sure about the rain because Chase is a big, long, striding horse. But he is definitely exciting.

“He will be going to the Singapore Guineas but we may give him another race before that. Just not the second leg of the Singapore Three-Year-Old Challenge, which will be too soon.”

The Group 1 Singapore Guineas (1600m) is the third Leg of the Singapore Three-Year-Old Challenge and will be run on May 15.

The three-year-old has now finished on the podium in his last five races which includes three wins in his last three for stakes earnings in the vicinity of $130,000 (he was bought by David Ellis for $120,000 from the Karaka Ready to Run Sale).