After drawing a blank on Friday, his first Kranji race meeting in almost three weeks, jockey Corey Brown finally returned to the winner’s circle, and in style too as he bagged a winning double on Sunday.
The popular hoop had earlier steered the Patrick Shaw-trained Yes Baba to a convincing victory in the $60,000 Class 4 race (1600m) and completed his comeback with an upset win in the $80,000 Kranji Stakes C race over 2000m aboard Mr Armstrong.
The Australian-bred galloper, prepared by Michael Freedman, had to dig deep to beat the fast-closing Jim (Ivaldo Santana) by half-a-length while Riedel (Lisa Allpresss) was one-and-three-quarter lengths adrift in third. The winning time on the Short Course was 2min 5.28secs.
Even with the late scratching of pre-race favorite Flying Tempo (Alan Munro) as the runners were getting ready to be load in their respective gates, Mr Armstrong was still rated an outside chance with the punters and was backed at $64, with only rank outsider Make A Return ($85) given less support.
“The plan was to sit back and ride him for luck,” said Brown. “I still thought he had a chance but I wanted to ride him quietly and be patient. In the end he toughed it out well for the win.”
The same could be said for the former Melbourne Cup-winning rider whose last victory was aboard Goliath on March 23 and has bounced back with the same steely determination after being slapped with double suspension (four Kranji racedays) by the Singapore Stewards.
He had been sitting fourth in the premiership with 18 winners, tied with compatriot Danny Beasley and just two adrift of Munro, while remaining within reasonable distance of leader Manoel Nunes, who had logged 30 victories then.
However, as Brown was on his enforced break, he could only watch as his main rivals collected win after win in his absence, with fellow Australian John Powell in particular striking a rich vein of form to leap-frog Brown who found himself in fifth position.
Even with his brace which brings his tally to 20 winners, Brown has lost ground on all his rivals, with Nunes (40 winners) stretching his lead at the top, followed by Munro (27), Powell (24) and Beasley (23).
“It’s been a rollercoaster few weeks but it’s good to be back and get some wins,” said Brown.
It was also a welcome victory for the Freedman yard which has endured a frustrating spell of late with a number of near misses. This victory with Mr Armstrong was the first for the powerfully-backed stable this month.
“We’ve been knocking on the door for a while and had a couple of seconds on Friday,” said assistant-trainer James Peters, who was standing in for the absent Freedman, who had returning this morning from Australia where he had attended the recently concluded Inglis Easter Yearling sale in Sydney.
“It was nice to finally get that win,” he added.
Owned by the Raffles Racing Stable, Mr Armstrong, a Dylan Thomas four-year-old, has now bagged five wins alongside five placings from his 16 starts and has collected around $220,000 in stakes earnings.
This was his first attempt over 2000m and his connections had been justifiably concerned if their middle-distance galloper, who has three wins over the mile, could handle a staying contest.
“We weren’t sure if he could see out the trip today,” admitted Peters.
Make A Return (Shafiq Rizuan) had set a slow pace at the front for a majority of the race as the other seven runners fell in line behind the chestnut nine-year-old, with Mr Armstrong settling in a handy position on his coattails.
As the field rounded the final bend for home, the swoopers, including $11 favourite Smileswithhiseyes (Manoel Nunes), made their move and quickly swept past Make A Return but it was Mr Armstrong who bravely hung on to seal an unlikely victory.
