Early Double for Mark Walker

This weekend is a full-on one with Te Akau horses stepping out in New Zealand at Riccarton, Tauranga and Waverley while Te Akau Singapore trainer Mark Walker kick started our busy racing weekend off in fine fashion - recording two winners in close succession at Kranji on Friday evening.

The Singapore Turf Club reports:

Except for Race 2, the first five events at Kranji on Friday night saw an interesting permutation of the same two jockeys and two trainers, with one owner thrown in the mix for good measure, all to show the intertwined nature of the industry at times.

Trainer Mark Walker and jockey Oscar Chavez were both at the double, but with only Haytham ($42 - main picture) as their common winner in Race 4, the $65,000 Initiation race over 1100m.

And last year's champion trainer got on board one race earlier in the $35,000 Maiden race (1200m) with $8 hot favourite Lim's Shot who had Danny Beasley in the irons.

Chavez was particularly pleased with his two wins as it's been a while since he visited the winner's circle more than once - March 27 when he bagged a treble, two wins with Real Hero and Golden Jade before capping the memorable day with a Group 3 win aboard Conflight in the Dester Singapore Three-Year-Old Sprint.

“It's been a bit quiet for me. It's nice to finally ride two winners,” said the Panamanian-born jockey.

“Haytham is a horse I like. It was my second time riding him and I had him in a good spot, racing quite relaxed.  He was between two horses (Snip and Autumn Rush) and looked like he wouldn't go through, but in the end, he burst through for a nice win.”

The Saperavi three-year-old indeed looked like the meat in the sandwich inside the last 200m, but somehow, found that little extra in the last bit to score by half-a-length from Snip (Saifudin Ismail) with Autumn Rush (A'Isisuhairi Kasim) third another head away. The winning time was 1min 5.96secs for the 1100m on the Polytrack.

Raced by relative newcomers, the Al-Arabiya Stable, Haytham was recording his first win from only three runs and according to Walker's assistant-trainer Robbie Hewitson, he looks destined for a bright future.

“It looked like that bump between the two horses helped him to get going,” said the New Zealander.

“He's a young horse going forward and so is the other winner Lim's Shot. He sat three deep and he still won a nice race.  They've both got ability and we'll see the best of them next year.”