The photo finish could not split favourite Primera Espada and longshot Aradea in the $75,000 Class 3 race over 1000m on Polytrack on Friday.
The Douglas Dragon-trained Primera Espada ($13) looked to have shaken off his 12 rivals when he was let loose by jockey Joao Moreira at the top of the straight, but he started to shorten up 100m out with a trio led by Aradea (V Sivan), Kingtrap (Saifudin Ismail) and Rising Expectation (Koh Teck Huat) closing in threateningly.
Aradea, who showed mammoth odds of $357 at the off, finished the best to finish locked together with Primera Espada on the inside. The favourite backers' prayers were eventually answered in half measure when the print revealed they had dead-heated.
Kingtrap ran third another neck away while Rising Expectation finished fourth another half-a-length away. The winning time was a slick 59.23 seconds.
While Dragon was heaving a sigh of relief the favourite had prevailed, an equally delighted O'Hara had secretly been harbouring hopes the Johannesburg four-year-old, a previous four-time winner would turn his form around following an unplaced run at his last start.
“He had worked very well and I was hoping for a good run. A half-win is still a win,” said Dragon with a smile.
“But I have to say he won thanks to Joao. If not for Joao, he would not have started favourite.”
O'Hara said he had forgiven Aradea for his ordinary last run and was expecting a much improved showing on Friday.
“He was too close to the pace last time out. He had to be pushed along to keep up and he weakened out in the end,” said O'Hara.
“Tonight, we decided to ride him quiet and Sivan rode him brilliantly. After he ran second to Parfumier in a trial, I was quietly confident he would run a better race tonight.
“Too bad the odds were slashed by half.”
Financially, the dead-heat proved kinder to the backers of Aradea who returned dividends of $178 while Primera Espada gave his backers a slender $6 payout.
Though the two horses shared the spoils, the computation for number of wins in the jockeys' and trainers' premierships is such that the half-win is still counted as one whole win. Hence Moreira was able to register another winning treble, having scored earlier with Popi Popi and Radasca, to consolidate his stranglehold on the lead with 87 wins, widening the gap to 32 wins on Vlad Duric.
