The Al-Arabiya Stable and trainer Ricardo Le Grange combined for their first success courtesy of debutant Ettijah in the $75,000 Restricted Maiden race over 1200m on Friday night.
The relatively new outfit has been around for about a year, starting off with trainer Mark Walker, but has recently spread their wings and their growing squad of horses to other trainers, namely Le Grange, Shane Baertschiger, Sonny Yeoh, James Peters and David Hill.
But Ettijah (Oscar Chavez) was the first to seal the new partnership with Le Grange with victory. For good measure, the runner-up was another newcomer hailing from Al-Arabiya Stable, Sahaba (Vlad Duric), who is, however, prepared by Yeoh.
Ettijah, a three-year-old by New Zealand stallion Jimmy Choux, showed an abundance of speed to shoot to the front when the gates crashed back, but quickly handed up the lead to Dash (Erasmus Aslam) when the latter came spearing over from his wider alley.
Chavez just dropped anchor from that point onwards before easing his mount to the outside upon straightening. The Panamanian-born hoop was seen not moving a muscle as Ettijah coasted to the lead, ever so slightly cuddling him before bringing down the handbrakes at the 150m.
Ettijah just jogged to the line barely out of second gear, with Chavez just glancing at the giant screen to ascertain there was no last-minute surprise sneaking up from behind. Sahaba could have made it interesting inside the concluding stages but he warmed up to the task a little too late.
In the end, Ettijah and Sahaba ran 1-2 for the Al-Arabiya Stable, 1 ¾ lengths apart with the two rank outsiders $239 shot Venus De Milo (Saifudin Ismail) and $371 shot Silent Prince (Syafiq Hazman) surprising third and fourth respectively about another length away. The winning time was 1min 11.14secs for the 1200m on the Long Course.
“It’s great to train a first winner for the Al-Arabiya Stable. They’ve sent seven horses to me and this is our first winner together,” said Le Grange.
“I have to admit I don’t know much about the progeny of Jimmy Choux, but I gather he is a Derby winner, so this guy should be even better over more ground.
“A big thank you to Oscar who rides a few horses in trackwork for us. I have in mind the time he helped us ride Professor X who was a very difficult horse.
“Oscar rode this horse a treat.”
Chavez said Ettijah, a barrier trial winner in both Singapore and New Zealand, was always in the zone from the moment he jumped.
“I eased him back in second spot and from there, it was just a matter of when I should push the button,” said Chavez.
“I didn’t want to go too early over the Long Course, but he was just too good in the end.”
