Unsighted since his resounding debut win in the first Leg of the Aushorse Golden Horseshoe seven-race two-year-old series last February, the Theo Kieser-trained Griffin finally resurfaces for his racing comeback on Friday night.
Photo by Singapore Turf Club
Ridden by Joao Moreira, the son of Sequalo scored from start to finish to defeat a small field of three other juveniles in the Inglis Melbourne Juvenile Stakes (1000m) on Polytrack. His then better-fancied stablemate Zeus Thunder was unable to peg him back and even had to share second place with Jackpot.
Griffin’s win along with those from Zeus Thunder and Yin Jie later on further cemented Kieser’s reputation as the “king of the kids” at Kranji. The almost eponymous Kaiser was the South African’s first two-year-old to set the trend, especially in the Golden Horseshoe series when it was launched in 2011.
But Griffin, who races in the same interests as Kaiser – the Griffin Stable - went amiss afterwards, plagued by various niggles.
“He was a horse with some promise, but unfortunately he had many setbacks after that debut win,” said Kieser.
“First, he bled, and we gave him a break and brought him back later, but then he suffered some feet issues.
“That was why we could not race him for so long. It’s been hard trying to get him back to racing fitness.
“He showed some speed in a barrier trial (December 27) but then his condition gave out and he ran out of the placings.”
Kieser, however, felt there was nothing like a race to bring the horse on and picked out Friday’s Class 4 (2) race over 1100m as the ideal avenue.
“He’s not 100% fit. I just gave him a race to try and bring up his racing fitness level,” he said.
“Weight-wise, he’s right about his normal weight of 500kg, but he’ll probably still need another two to three races to get him fit.”Kieser was happy Griffin would at least have a pair of hands that know him well.
“Joao phoned all the way from Brazil for this ride,” said Kieser. “He said as he didn’t have any commitments in that race, he would like to keep his association going with him.”
The three-time Singapore champion jockey, who was still holidaying in his native Brazil, skipped the first race meeting on New Year’s Day, but will be right back in action this weekend, with nine and 10 rides booked this Friday and Sunday respectively.
Kieser, who had no luck with his four runners last Tuesday at the New Year’s Day meeting, is fielding three more runners (Destiny Action, Lucky Come and Qualitase) on Friday night, but will sit out Sunday’s meeting.
When asked if he had a new nursery of two-year-olds waiting in the wings this year, Kieser said he had about 14 of them, but was unable to make any predictions about any budding star in the making.
“Of the 14, three are still in quarantine. The 11 two-year-olds that are here have not done enough to give me an idea if they will run in the series,” he said.
“I’m just trying to get them ready. It’s still too early to tell which are the ones with some ability.
“But fingers crossed, I can have the same good run with the two-year-olds again this year.”
