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Less than a length separated first to seventh in the third race on Friday night with the judge’s nod going to Super Joe by a short head.
The $60,000 Class 4 over 1700m had all the ingredients of a thriller when seven horses converged at the same time to fight for top prize inside the last furlong of the Polytrack race.
Super Joe (Barend Vorster) was one of the first to poke his head in front as he came with a withering run to collar surprisingly tenacious race-leader Showar (Oscar Chavez) at the 200m.
But the issue was anything but cut and dried as five more horses could all have a conceivable chance of knocking Super Joe off his perch – Sun Scraper (Wong Chin Chuen) on his nearside, Arr Flair (A’Isisuhairi Kasim) on the outside, Khudawand (Alan Munro) and to a lesser extent Miliary Might (Nurshahril Nordin) on the fence and Northern Knight (Vlad Duric) a touch astern.
As the first five lunged at the post, with the naked eye, it looked like the judge’s decision would be narrowed down between either Super Joe ($20) and $280 longshot Sun Scraper. To the second-favourite backers’ relief, No 4 was in the end semaphored with a short head the official margin.
Sun Scraper took the runner-up spot, a head from Showar and Arr Flair who could not be split for third place. Khudawand ran fifth another head away, with Military Might in sixth, separated by a similar margin while Northern Knight was seventh another half-length away. The winning time was 1min 45.53secs for the 1700m on the Polytrack.
Vorster said Super Joe is that kind of horse who never says die when the chips are down.
“He’s a funny horse. Sometimes he jumps good, sometimes not, and tonight, he showed absolutely no interest early in the race,” said the South African jockey.
“I had to keep niggling at him from the 1000m to the 800m and when I took him to the outside at the top of the straight, that’s when he gave a nice turn of foot.
“I had to switch the stick to the left as he was hanging in, but he really toughed it out in the last bit. He always shows plenty of fight.”
Trainer Ricardo Le Grange had only one thing to say as he headed down to lead in his 52nd winner of the year.
“This has to be one of the rides of the year,” said the South African handler.
Raced by the Tmen Stable, Super Joe, a six-year-old by Not A Single Doubt, was registering his sixth win from 51 starts for stakes earnings that are closing in on the $350,000 mark.
