All eyes were on even-money favourite Distinctive Darci, but it was the back-in-form Sir Isaac who stole his thunder with a stylish win in the $125,000 Kranji Stakes A Division 1 race over 1200m on Friday night.
The Dream Ahead five-year-old had not greeted the judge for over a year (in a Kranji Stakes C race over 1100m on August 18, 2017), but his first-up closing second in a Kranji Stakes C race over 1000m on August 17, five months after his last run, had sent signals he might be back in the groove.
The punters were still hesitant to plump for him outright, as indicative of his lukewarm odds of $41, perhaps wary of the second-up syndrome after rest, but most probably because of the big leap in class – he was now tackling the big boys.
But his barnstorming finish from last to first showed in no uncertain terms that Sir Isaac has come into his own, and is a most reliable customer when on song.
Seeing them all from the get-go, Sir Isaac (Alysha Collett) had Distinctive Darci (Vlad Duric) for companion at the rear, but looked like he had not jumped on the bandwagon when the hotpot dashed away around runners from the 700m.
For a while, it looked like Sir Isaac had his job cut out when he still brought up the rear at the home turn, especially bearing in mind Distinctive Darci would be hard to topple once he is set alight. But the complexion changed drastically when Distinctive Darci seemed to be plodding and plateauing off at the 300m while Sir Isaac was the one putting in the big bounds.
Upfront, big roughie Hermano Menor (Simon Kok Wei Hoong), who was resuming after nearly eight months, was close to springing a major upset, but Sir Isaac kept up the momentum to score by a neck from the fast-finishing Olympic Anthem (Daniel Moor) with Hermano Menor third another neck away.
After launching that long searching run from the back, Distinctive Darci felt the pinch late to weaken to fifth place, just over 1 ½ lengths off the winner. The winning time was 1min 11.55secs for the 1200m on the Polytrack.
“Alysha rode a faultless race on him. She deserves all the credit,” said winning trainer Cliff Brown.
“She timed the run to perfection. With the light weight, Sir Isaac attacked the line very well and won a nice race.
“He’s a horse with a big finish. At his first-up run, he nearly got up, and he’s reproduced that run tonight.”
Collett, who was at her first ride on Sir Isaac, said she rode him to instructions and luckily for them, the race unfolded as scripted.
“The race panned out perfectly for us. It couldn’t have come off any better,” said the Kiwi lass.
With that third win and nine previous placings, Sir Isaac has now amassed around $300,000 in stakes earnings for his English owners Nick Johnston and Paul Robbins.
