On a night when many longshots upset the applecart, White Coffee came and piled more misery on favourite backers when he scored a last-gasp win in the $80,000 Class 3 race over 1400m on Friday.
Only odds-on favourite Divided House justified her short odds while all the other first elects in the remaining eight races were rolled, with three of the victors rewarding their handful of punters with very juicy payouts – Excellent One ($764), So The Thing ($214) and now White Coffee ($166).
Most thought the Alwin Tan-trained White Coffee would have the job cut out against better quality company given his last-start win came in Class 4 and the wide barrier gate (11) was also a query, but under an inspiring ride by champion apprentice jockey A’Isisuhairi Kasim, the Lonhro seven-year-old nabbed the better-fancied ($24) Snitzel Spirit by a nose right on the line, depriving jockey Corey Brown of a four-timer (the Australian jockey did, however, nail his fourth winner in the Lucky Last with Mings Man).
Elusive Emperor (Barend Vorster) bounced back from his unplaced run in the Group 1 Singapore Guineas (1600m) to run third another 1 ½ lengths away.
Favourite Reach For The Sun (Benny Woodworth) sat off race-leader Gold Run (Matthew Kellady) but just could not quicken when the chips were down to run a disappointing sixth. The winning time was 1min 22.52secs for the 1400m on the Short Course.
While Tan was pleasantly surprised with the way White Coffee – who incidentally races in his colours – swooped late to score right at the death, his rider seemed less taken aback. A'Isisuhairi actually did ride White Coffee two seasons ago when he was prepared by trainer Michael Freedman, even winning at his first sit in a Benchmark 67 race, incidentally with the same late flourish.
“I know this horse when he was with Michael Freedman. I won on him and I remember he is a horse you have to keep busy all the time,” said A’Isisuhairi.
“He was three wide down the back and that’s why I did not hesitate riding him along from that point. You just have to keep warming him up.
“At the 200m, he found another gear to hit top gear and he just made it on the line. It was close but I knew I had beaten Corey’s horse.
“Even though he was up in class, I always felt he was more of a Class 3 horse and he proved me right, but I have to say the light weight helped him, too.”
Tan said the Kelantan-born apprentice jockey deserved most of the plaudits as he followed his instructions – both pre-race and during the race - and the win was finally carved out from his hard graft.
“I must say I was worried he would find it tough as he was jumping in class and there were quite a few good horses in the race,” said the Singaporean conditioner.
“But we just have to try our luck and the owners also told us to do our best.
“Harry followed my instructions. I told him to warm him up at the barriers as he can miss the jump at times.
“He jumped quickly tonight and as he was drawn wide, I told him to drop back and save as much ground as possible.
“His light weight also played a big part but it was Harry that won the race for us.”
White Coffee has now brought his win tally to seven from 39 starts, with three of them coming for Tan, for total prizemoney in excess of $320,000.
