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Trainer Alwin Tan was able to forget his stable blues after he saddled an early double on Sunday.
After sizzling through the first three months to sit second only one winner off leader Mark Walker at one stage, the Singaporean trainer has been catching his breath a little in April, saddling only two winners, a slowed-up tempo which seemed to have continued into May with only Amistad’s win on May 8 to show for.
But Soon Yi in the opener and Gato Negro two races later have brought the smiles back, especially with the spot of “restructuring” his stable had gone through in recent weeks.
“It’s been a bit tough lately. Some owners were not happy and left, and the wins have not been as frequent,” said Tan.
“Owners feel it too when the winners are not coming, but hopefully, today’s two winners will bring me some luck from now on.”
While he said “Soon Yi is Soon Yi” and the $33 shot did what he had to do under jockey Saifudin Ismail in the $38,000 Affleck 2015 Stakes, a Kranji Stakes D race over 1200m in the first race, he was a little surprised with Gato Negro’s ($86) win in the $60,000 Stepitup 2013 Stakes, an Open Benchmark 67 race over 1200m that had the likes of Famous Artist, Barnato and interestingly one of those horses he lost, Wonderful Knight, formerly Smart People, now with Mok Zhan Lun.
“That win was very pleasing as it was a pretty tough field. Oscar Chavez and that horse team up well,” said Tan.
“I was worried when they had nowhere to go but the split came in the last 200m and the horse just flew home in time.
“Oscar said he was a bit concerned there would not be any pace. I had Lively Dragon in the race but my ex-horse Wonderful Knight was even quicker.”
Chavez said at the 300m, he thought he was a certainty beaten and already saw himself recounting the hard-luck story to Tan after unsaddling. Ironically, the Panamanian-born jockey was the one who gave the Oratorio five-year-old the name Gato Negro, which means Black Cat in Spanish, a tongue-in-cheek nod to superstition in racing.
“I thought we were gone, I was caught in traffic and couldn’t go anywhere,” said Chavez who has now brought up win No 4 from Gato Negro’s seven wins.
“Even when he got out, I thought it was too late but we made it right on the line.”
Favourite Famous Artist (Manoel Nunes) had the race in his keeping when he hit the front at the 300m and went hard against the rails, but the swoopers were descending thick and fast on him. Gato Negro eventually pulled to the outside for the best finish to gain the verdict by half-a-length with Barnato (Barend Vorster) third a neck away, a nose ahead of the dead-heating pair of Lively Dragon (Nooresh Juglall) and Lim’s Showcase (Vlad Duric) for fourth place. The winning time was 1min 10.5secs for the 1200m on the Long Course.
Gato Negro was at his fifth run following a seven-month spell since August 2015. He has now tallied up seven wins and seven placings from 35 starts for stakes earnings past the $330,000 mark for the Revelry Stable.