Trainer Bruce Marsh predicted a staying future for Murdoch after he ran on late to score his maiden win at his third Kranji start in the $75,000 Zac Spirit 2014 Stakes, a Restricted Maiden race over 1400m on Sunday.
The Kiwi handler owns three-quarter of the shares in the Written Tycoon three-year-old, but was not really expecting such an early form turnaround given his two unplaced runs thus far.
Marsh does not think very highly of the gelding in the mental department either. But the experienced horseman has a simple approach to taking care of such cases, and it seems to work – leave them be.
“He’s a very big dumb horse, but I thought I would just let him being dumb,” said Marsh.
“He didn’t show anything in his races or his trials. Vlad Duric’s never ridden him but he agreed to take the ride today.
“You’ve got Vlad and barrier No 1; what more can you ask and that paid off. It was a funny sort of race, they went on early and then slowed up but he had a lovely run on the rails.
“When the gaps came up, he surprised me with the way he ran on. But I think this horse could come quite good over 2000m, too bad we don’t have many 2200m races here.”
Duric agreed there was more improvement to come from Murdoch who has taken him to only five winners (25) shy of Manoel Nunes (30).
“He’s a staying type, but he won in an average field today and the blinkers helped him as well,” said the Australian rider.
“There’s a lot of improvement to come out of this race.”
After a moderate jump, Murdoch ($87) settled worse than midfield on the rails while stablemate Hoffman (Nunes) rolled forward from a wide gate to take up the running.
Hoffman, Marsh’s first runner for champion owner Oscar Racing Stable, gave the impression he was not a spent force yet when Astrocandy (Antonio da Silva) came off his box-seat to collar him, but as hard as they rallied, they could not contain Murdoch’s superior finish.
Murdoch scored in advance of Astrocandy who himself dominated Hoffman in the end with the trio separated by the same half-length margin. The winning time was 1min 23.7secs for the 1400m on the Short Course.
Marsh was also happy with Hoffman’s third place at only his third outing for him.
“I actually wanted Hoffman to win for Oscar. It was still a very good run,” said Marsh.
