Top Knight franked his fast-closing debut fourth with a convincing win in the $85,000 In Fact 2016 Stakes, a Restricted Maiden race over 1400m on Sunday.
The Zoustar three-year-old probably had the race won after he was able to negate his wide alley with a smart jump before securing a smothered run in midfield.
Centenary Diamond (John Powell) and Street Party (Alan Munro) challenged race-leader King Zoustar (Craig Grylls) in the straight, but none could contain the superior finish of Top Knight (Glen Boss) when he came surging through the pack at the 300m.
The Thai-owned newcomer kept hitting the line very well to go and post a solid one-length win from Street Party for a quinella between the two joint $14 favourites. Centenary Diamond peaked on his run to settle for third place another 1 ¼ lengths away, a nose ahead of King Zoustar. The winning time was 1min 23.6secs for the 1400m on the Short Course.
After saddling Friday night’s last winner Imperium, who was incidentally also ridden by Boss, in-form trainer Michael Clements was picking up where he had left off.
“We bought this horse at the breeze-up sales at the Magic Millions sale in the Gold Coast last year. He’s a nice horse,” said Clements.
“He was unlucky on debut when he got squeezed on either side at the start, and got back further than we wanted.
“He was not in such a great position, but he made up a lot of ground in the end.
“Today, the wide barrier was a worry, but Glen was able to get him right across early to settle behind the leaders.
“There wasn’t much pace to the race, but he made up ground to win a very nice race.”
Raced by Thai outfit Falcon Racing No 7 Stable, Top Knight picked up a cheque of $3,825 from his debut fourth to Quadcopter in a Restricted Maiden race over 1200m three weeks ago, but that first success has significantly jacked his winnings up to the $50,000 mark.
With 40 wins on the board, Clements is not losing sight of the leading pair of Shane Baertschiger (43 wins) and Lee Freedman (42 wins).
“We targeted to be in the Top 3 this year and we’re very happy to have achieved that so far, even if we had a quiet last two months,” said the Zimbabwean-born handler.
“But our horses are running well and there is a nice batch of young horses coming up. It’s probably the best team of horses I’ve ever had and we hope to give it a good go in the next couple of months.”
