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A determined ride from Lisa Allpress saw Zedkaar overcome a bit of waywardness in the home straight to cross the line first in the $80,000 Super Easy 2011 Stakes, an Open Benchmark 74 race over 1600m on Sunday.

Settled at the tail-end in the small seven-horse field, Zedkaar commenced to travel through horses as the pack bunched up 1000m out when leader Eagle Storm (John Powell) stacked up the speed.

Allpress did not panic and allowed Zedkaar to punch through between runners and eventually get a dream cart when Flying Ahead (Ivaldo Santana) whipped around the field to challenge the leaders.

Upon straightening, Flying Ahead could not go on with the job and vanished out of the race, but Zedkaar quickly pounced onto the scene by hitting the lead. Most then thought the $12 favourite would put his rivals to the sword, but he started to roll out under pressure and Eagle Storm was not a spent force hard up against the rails.

More intrigue was tossed into the fighting pit when Board Walk (Barend Vorster) rushed up with a sweeping run on the outside to set the scene of three horses spread across the track with no telling which way the race would go.

But Allpress was the one who had them covered as Zedkaar rallied again to hold his two challengers safely at bay, scoring by 1 ¼ lengths from Board Walk while Eagle Storm wilted late to finish third another neck away. The winning time was 1min 35.31secs.

“For once, he had a horse in front of him to bring him into the race,” said the Kiwi rider. “I was a bit worried when he hung out in the home straight, but he dug deep and won a nice race.

“He’s a nice solid type of horse and can go further as well. He’s lightly-raced as they’ve looked after him.”

Clements agreed that on breeding, the five-year-old son of Ekraar will stay, and even had the Group 1 Longines Singapore Gold Cup (2200m) to be run next Sunday as a wild thought at some stage, but had all but put those grandiose plans on the backburner now.

“This horse has kept improving. We space his runs, not because he has any issues, but just to give him more time,” said the Zimbabwean-born trainer.

“On breeding, he’ll go further as well. We did think about the Gold Cup early doors, but his rating is too low and it hasn’t quite worked out, maybe next year.”

Raced by New Zealand owner Graham Mackie of Spalato fame, Zedkaar has now chalked up a handy record of three wins and four placings from eight starts for prizemoney in excess of $160,000.