The Leslie Khoo-Nooresh Juglall combination does pop up now and again, and it sure clicked on Sunday when they rang up a race-to-race double with outsiders Queen Roulette and Shuying Xiaoxiao.
Though the Mauritian jockey tends to ride more often for leading trainer Patrick Shaw, he has since his riding debut in 2014, regularly teamed up with Khoo, the four-in-a-row aboard War Time the standout result, but was also successful with other bread-and-butter winners like Always A Winner, Winning Star and Queen Roulette herself.
The non-descript filly by unfashionable sire Ruwi has now been partnered by Juglall at her last four starts for two of her three wins, and it is odds-on he will be staying in the saddle for a while longer going with the way the duo seem to know where the winning post was, as demonstrated in Sunday’s $75,000 Graduation race over 1200m.
Dropping Queen Roulette ($62) right at the back of the small six-horse field, Juglall rode a patient race, waiting for the last 300m to turn up the heat. After pointing the filly to the outside, Juglall pulled out all the stops inside the last furlong as they went chipping away at the margin on the smart resuming three-year-old Skywalk (Barend Vorster) and favourite Mystic Master (Alan Munro).
Showing absolutely no signs of rustiness, Skywalk hung on stoutly to his slender lead on the inside, but Queen Roulette showed plenty of heart to lunge at the line and nab him by a short head. Mystic Master did not quite measure up to the Graduation company to fade to third place another gap of 2 ¼ lengths away.
The winning time was 1min 9.92secs for the 1200m on the Short Course.
“It’s great to ride a double for Leslie and I take this opportunity to thank him and the owners. Queen Roulette is a filly I know well whereas I was riding Shuying Xiaoxiao ($114) for the first time,” said Juglall.
“Leslie told me Shuying Xiaoxiao was fit and well and he gave him a chance. I had to go hard at him and he responded very well for a narrow win.
“Queen Roulette also made it just in time, but I have to say I was quietly confident she would run well even though she was in a small but quality field.
“Her last two runs were not in her favour. She led more by default as there was no horse with speed, and she is more of a chaser.
“Then at her next start she was three wide and as she’s not a big filly, it didn’t help.
“Today, I told Leslie we should ride her quiet. She was battling a little around the bend and she took some time to wind up.
“But once I changed whip, she dug down deep. It was close but I was confident I had got the horse on the inside.”
Khoo was delighted Queen Roulette had bounced back to the winner’s circle, her third in nine starts for her owner-breeder Teng Kian Beng. She has now taken her earnings past the $145,000 mark.
“She’s only a little filly, but she has such a big heart,” said Khoo.
“Juglall knows the filly very well. She came from off the pace today and was very brave to the line.”
