The vastly-improved Knight’s Command showed that his last win was no flash in the pan when he took out the $80,000 Royal Western India Turf Club Trophy (1600m), an Open Benchmark 78 race in even more dominant fashion on Sunday.
While the Pins six-year-old came from near-last to nail the race right at the last hop on March 16, he was a lot handier this time, box-seating in third before diving for the rails gap for a most convincing 1 ¼-length win from Cannon Hill (Barend Vorster) with Chinese Culture (Alan Munro) holding on for third by a head after having led the race at an even tempo.
The two top fancies, the Lucky Stable pair of Holy Warrior (Manoel Nunes, $15) and Sweet Lodge (A’Isisuhairi Kasim, $22) were disappointing, running fifth and sixth respectively.
Knight's Command ($31), a three-time winner in New Zealand who has now tallied up three wins at Kranji, recorded the smart time of 1min 34.15secs for the 1600m on the Short Course.
Marsh said he had told his apprentice Zuriman Zulkifli to ride him a little more positive this time, even if such tactics ended in a close defeat on Singapore Airlines International Cup night due to an error of judgement from ironically a gun rider, a proof that the best are only human.
“The last time he box-seated like that, he unfortunately went too early. James McDonald rode him on that day and he got the course wrong – he didn’t know it was the Long Course,” said Marsh of the fellow Kiwi ace jockey who incidentally just won Saturday’s Golden Slipper aboard Mossfun.
“He’s more free in his action now and even though he came from behind at his last win, I thought he should be ridden a lot handier this time. Zuriman rode him very well.
“He just prayed for the run of the fence to come and it came through nice. He’s definitely a horse on his way up, which is good considering the truckload of problems he’s had.
“If he can stay sound, he will win many more races as he certainly has a lot of ability.”
Zuriman said Knight’s Command, who was incidentally his last winning ride, is a horse who has really improved this term, especially after the visor has been switched to blinkers, as was the case at his last-start win.
“I didn’t really expect him to win on Polytrack at his last start, but he still won,” said the Malaysian two-kilo-claiming apprentice jockey who was at his sixth win this campaign.
“I think he likes turf better and I was a lot more confident today. Once the gap came up at the top of the straight, he quickened up very well.”
Knight’s Command, a Pins six-year-old who races in the purple and ochre colours of the relatively new outfit TITS & LFS Stable, has now taken his prize earnings past the $165,000 level.
