Jimmy Jubilant

Te Akau Singapore trainer Mark Walker has maintained his lead on the Trainers' Premiership with two wins across the weekend - the first being Iking on Friday night.

The second came on Sunday with the highly talented Jimmy Rea taking out the feature on the programme for Kevin Hickman - the Singapore Turf Club reports ...

Trainer Mark Walker's roll of the dice with the talented but sometimes unpredictable Jimmy Rea came off in the best possible way in Sunday's $125,000 Landex Cup, putting him in good stead for his main target, the Group 2 EW Barker Trophy (1400m) on November 13.

The Thewayyouare four-year-old had proven costly to punters since his flying second to Affleck in the Group 1 Singapore Guineas (1600m), mixing his form in four starts, with two seconds and two unplaced runs, including a disappointing fifth to Southern Boss while donning visors for the first time just last Sunday.

Walker could have thought twice about the Landex Cup, but the gelding pulled up in great order, and he saw no reason why not to press on towards the race formerly known as the Luzerne Cup.

Jimmy Rea (Alan Munro) bounces back to his best in the Landex Cup on Sunday.

The Kiwi trainer and his assistant-trainer Gus Clutterbuck thought long and hard about retaining the visors or not, deciding in the end to drop the gear, while keeping fingers crossed the real Jimmy Rea will finally step forward.

And he did. Granted, it was not in the same slashing last-to-first manner he normally leaves his rivals in the dust, but the opposition was significantly stronger in the Landex Cup with the likes of Super Winner (Soo Khoon Beng), Wimbledon (Corey Brown), stablemate My Lucky Strike (Shafiq Rizuan) and even his last-start surprise nemesis Southern Boss (Joseph See) in the line-up.

Walker's gelding certainly had to work a little harder when he began a sustained run from the 600m, especially as they still had a fight on their hands with Wimbledon and $14 favourite Super Winner scrambling for the top prize 200m out. But aided by a well-judged ride from jockey Alan Munro, Jimmy Rea ($23) gradually gained the whip hand to go and earn the verdict by one length from Wimbledon with Super Winner again brave in defeat with a third place another head away.

Trainer Mark Walker and jockey Alan Munro celebrate Jimmy Rea's win in the Landex Cup.

“He had a virus after the Guineas and it took a while for him to get over it. He needed a few runs to get back to his best and it's good to see him winning again today,” said Walker

“The EW Barker is his grand final. We were a bit put back from last week's run, but I spoke with Gus and we thought we had nothing to lose.

“We also had to decide whether to leave the visors on him, but as it turned out we made the right decision today. He is stronger now and there is no need to do a lot of work with him to get to the Barker.

“My Lucky Strike (fourth) ran well. He is up in ratings now and there was nothing on Polytrack for him and we decided to give him a run in this race as well.”

With that latest success, Jimmy Rea was bringing up his sixth win in 12 starts for stakes earnings close to the $430,000 mark for his New Zealand owner Kevin Hickman. He clocked the smart time of 1min 9.21secs for the 1200m on the Long Course.

Munro, who was replacing the suspended Manoel Nunes aboard Jimmy Rea, was suitably impressed with his pick-up ride but said he was not quite the finished article yet.

“It was the right race for him. He ran on well on the outside but we did get into trouble at the 600m on the outside of Super Winner,” said the English jockey.

“They were too slow for him. He's still not professional in the run, can be a bit difficult to ride, but he has so much talent.  I think he has his chance in the EW Barker Trophy. It'd be nice to ride him in that race.”