Singapore Treble

What a brilliant night - Te Akau Singapore's Mark Walker trains a winning treble.

Mark is now 10 races clear on the Singapore Trainers' Premiership.

Our first winner was Flag of Command ridden by Joao Moreira - he continued that success when combining with the David Ellis purchased Select Gathering.

A gelding by Choisir, Select Gathering was bought by David for just $40,000 from the Karaka Premier Sale.   He has now started 15 times for three wins, two second, four third and two fourth placings - with just over $100,000 in stakes - what a result for his owners.

The Singapore Turf Club reported on the success of Bazinga:

Longshot Bazinga overcame a tardy getaway to come out tops in the $75,000 Kranji Stakes C race over 1000m to hand trainer Mark Walker a winning treble on Sunday.

Singapore's current leading trainer had already bagged two wins earlier when combining with Joao Moreira aboard favourites Flag Of Command and Select Gathering and was looking the goods for a hat-trick with the Singapore champion jockey on another top fancy in Soul Commander, but it was his second-stringer Bazinga ($125), well ridden by Walker's apprentice, Shafiq Rizuan who finally did the job.

After dropping to second-last, the Fastnet Rock five-year-old, previously known as Macau, gradually worked his way back into the field to be within striking distance at the top of the straight.

Shafiq Rizuan guides Bazinga (orange colours) to victory in Race 7 on Sunday

Soul Commander, who had to do the hard yards from three wide, issued his challenge at the top of the straight, but soon looked a spent force as he petered out to beat one home. Bazinga, on the other hand, rolled on to get the better of Angry Cat (Ivaldo Santana) by a neck with Joyful Melody (Zuriman Zulkifli) surprisingly doing well in a change to waiting tactics to run third another head away.

The winner scored the smart time of 58.68 seconds to register his sixth overall success,  his fourth over 1000m. Walker said the Remarkable Stable-owned gelding has always had the bad habit of missing the kick, but still harboured a small hope he could run a cheeky race second-up.

“He's always had a good second-up record from memory. I gave him a break last December just to freshen him up,” said the Kiwi handler.

“He's always been slow away in his races, but I thought this race could suit as there was so much speed in it.  The other thing I also noticed about him is he always runs his best races when it rains on Polytrack. For some reason, it seems to do the trick for him.  He's certainly a capable horse on his day, but it's a bit hard to catch him on his right day.”

Shafiq, who has not saluted since Eatons Gold (also prepared by Walker) on March 3, said Bazinga was a horse he knew inside out.

“I know this horse very well and I was not surprised he was again slow out of the gates,” said Shafiq.

“I was prepared for that. All I had to do was to keep riding him to wake him up and not let him switch off on me. In the straight, he just kept going and won in a tight finish. It was a nice surprise.”
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Bazinga has now brought his earnings to just a little under the $300,000 mark for his connections.