Exciting prospect Captain Jamie lived up to the big wraps around him with yet another resounding win on Sunday.
Already an impressive maiden victor at his fourth start in an Initiation race over 1400m on August 28, the son of Captain Sonador again made light work of his Novice rivals in the $75,000 Flying Fulton 2011 Stakes over 1400m.
Granted the small field of nine runners was already rendered even smaller when Got Goal and Soonbaby were withdrawn, but just looking at the way Ricardo Le Grange’s ward made his own luck in front for Nooresh Juglall after jumping from the widest barrier to kick clear unopposed down the home straight, it was still a win full of merit.
Ottawa (Olivier Placais) did jump out of the ground to give the $8 odds-on favourite something to worry about inside the last 150m, but if there was any chink in his armour, it was not James Peters’ valiant son of Foxwedge who would find it.
Captain Jamie scored by just under two lengths from Ottawa with Marvel Hero (Craig Grylls) third another 2 ½ lengths away. The winning time was 1min 22.64secs for the 1400m on the Long Course.
Le Grange was obviously suitably impressed with the comfortable win, but was still taking it step by step with the Guy Shirtliff-owned galloper even if some lofty plans were starting to take shape on the horizon.
“Not many horses can do what he has done in such a short time,” began Le Grange.
“We knew there’d be a lot of pace to the race, and he ended upfront quite easily.
“It was the Long Course and he was in front for a long time. It’s not easy for a young horse like him.
“A big thank you to Guy and Marsh Shirtliff for giving me this horse to train. It’s an absolute pleasure to train for them.
“I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, I will be looking at the Singapore Three-Year-Old Challenge next year, though the 1200m race (Sprint) might be too sharp for him.
“I’m only having my first year as a trainer, but things have gone so well for me, but obviously, I am very thankful for the support from the clients as well as my mentor Patrick Shaw, and the staff.”
Juglall said the race was as good as in the bag the moment he found the steel and went on to enjoy an uncontested lead.
“I’m really pleased with this win as he’s a horse I’ve always rated very highly,” said the Mauritian hoop.
“Everything went his way today. We got in front and we were lucky nobody took us on and he did very nicely in the end.
“A big thank you to Marsh and Guy for putting me on. They will have a lot of fun with this horse.”
With that second win and a second place at his third start in five outings, Captain Jamie has now collected in excess of $90,000 in stakes earnings for his connections.
