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The outermost alley deterred both trainer and jockey but apparently, not the horse himself, who despite being at his racing debut, showed plenty of poise to go all the way in the $65,000 Initiation race over 1200m on Friday night.
Trainer Leslie Khoo and leading apprentice jockey Shafiq Rizuan had all along been trading thumbs-ups about the Patapan four-year-old in the lead-up to his first start, but come declaration time on Wednesday, their confidence level nosedived a little.
But a well-laid plan to vie for the lead early in a 12-horse field made up of only four horses with experience paid handsome dividends.
Showing an abundance of speed from barrier No 12, Winning Man was scrubbed up by Shafiq in search of the lead, which they secured rather easily 100m into the race. Half the battle was won there and then, with the next battle plan all about controlling the tempo of the race all the way to the wire.
Which Shafiq executed to a tee. Duran (Zawari Razali), a cracking third on debut, loomed as his most immediate threat upon cornering, but it was soon clear he had his job cut out with Winning Man still going great guns at the head of affairs.
Favourite Lady Liberty (Wong Chin Chuen), who settled at the rear from the off, had in the meantime weaved her way between runners to be within striking distance at the 300m mark, but by the time she saw daylight, Winning Man was already out of reach.
Living very well to his catchy name, Winning Man ($24) was eased down late to score by 1 ½ lengths from a very gallant Lady Liberty with Duran holding on for third place another three-quarter length away. The winning time was 1min 10.58secs for the 1200m on the Long Course.
“If he had drawn a good barrier, I would have been very confident he could win first-up,” said Khoo. “He also trialled very well in New Zealand and was bought for us by Dean Wallace.
“His work has been very good and he had three good trials under the belt here, but when he drew wide, I have to admit I lost a little bit of confidence.
“I put the blinkers on him at his last trial as he had a tendency to lose concentration in the home straight. From the wide draw tonight, there was only one way to ride him – in front.”
Shafiq was just as downcast after they were handed the bad gate, taking it one step further by quantifying that drop of bullishness.
“I trialled him twice and he showed me enough potential to tell me he can race well at his first start, but I lost around 10 to 20% of my confidence after he drew wide,” said the Malaysian apprentice jockey.
“But with so many new horses in the race, we decided to take a chance by racing forward.
“At the 400m, I was a bit worried as he was looking around, his ears were twitching, and I was thinking he had no idea what he was doing. But when he heard the noise from the crowd in the straight, suddenly that seemed to switch him on and he started to kick faster and faster.”