A blinkered Churchill, who is owned by South African connections, regained his dynamic turn of foot to claim the $70,000 Class 3 Division 2 race over 1200m on Polytrack at Kranji on Saturday.
Smothered up in fourth place for his charge to the post, Churchill, who was backed down to SG$14 favouritism, gave his rivals little chance of a response once he was produced by first-time partner Ruan Maia at the top of the straight.
Churchill (Ruan Maia) returns to winning ways on Saturday
Among the leading bunch throughout, Super Invincible (Iskandar Rosman) still had a kick left in him into the straight, mounting a stiff resistance when Churchill came upsides, but the latter eventually gathered him in to assert his superiority with a smart 1 ¼-length win.
Mr Hooper (Juan Paul van der Merwe) was produced late to finish third another half-length away. The winning time was 1min 10.55secs for the 1200m on Polytrack.
Churchill was bringing up his third win in eight starts, breaking a mini run of outs – two unplaced runs, including one in his target race, the Gr1 Singapore Derby (1800m) in September.
The Smart Missile five-year-old’s first two wins were recorded for Steve Levar and he has now saluted for his new owner Guy Shirtliff at only his second start for the South African, toting up close to SG$125,000 in stakes earnings.
The win also rang up a training hat-trick for Ricardo Le Grange who earlier scored with SG$48 chance Stormy View ($50,000 Class 4 Division 1 race over 1200m) and $16 shot Hotshots Slam ($30,000 Class 5 race over 1200m), enabling the South African to leapfrog over trainers James Peters and Stephen Gray to sixth place on the log on 22 winners, before Gray got one back with Military Chairman ($52) in the SG$30,000 Class 5 Division 2 race over 1600m to reclaim his sixth spot.
It was a brand new restart of sorts for Hotshots Slam given the Swiss Ace four-year-old was at his first outing for Le Grange on Saturday, having been unable to find the line in 10 subequent starts since scoring on debut for Shane Baertschiger last year in June.
The win also rang up a training hat-trick for Ricardo Le Grange who earlier scored with SG$48 chance Stormy View ($50,000 Class 4 Division 1 race over 1200m) and SG$16 shot Hotshots Slam (SG$30,000 Class 5 race over 1200m), enabling the South African to leapfrog over trainers James Peters and Stephen Gray to sixth place on the log on 22 winners, before Gray got one back with Military Chairman (SG$52) in the SG$30,000 Class 5 Division 2 race over 1600m to reclaim his sixth spot.
As for Stormy View, the Argentinian-bred four-year-old mare seems to have gained more confidence since opening her account two starts back with winning partner Krisna Thangamani again in the irons on Saturday.
She has now posted two wins and one second from 10 starts for prizemoney around the SG$55,000 mark for the Griffin Stable of Mr Rodney Too.
- Singapore Turf Club
