Honest Truth capitalised on his brilliant form and a field deprived of four runners including the leading pick to bag the $80,000 Kranji Stakes C race over 1000m on Sunday.
The 12 horses were all under starter’s orders when Clip The Ticket suddenly played up in his gate, injuring his jockey Shafiq Rizuan. The fracas did not take long to set off three more horses, favourite Speedy Dragon (Manoel Nunes), Lim’s Greeting (Danny Beasley) and Pioneer Seven (Syafiq Hazman), with the worse off being Speedy Dragon who knuckled under before coming out riderless with a badly displaced saddle.
Reduced to eight runners after the four horses were scratched, the field was finally sent on their way with Secret Mission (Wong Chin Chuen) and Honest Truth (Elione Chaves) pairing up to dictate the early speed battle. Chaves eased off to allow Secret Mission to lead on his lonesome before launching another charge upon straightening.
Under Chaves’ urgings, the Hussonet nine-year-old picked up Secret Mission halfway up the straight before plugging away towards the winning post. Sun Pioneer (Benny Woodworth) and Castor (Troy See) tried to contest his superiority inside the last 100m, but Honest Truth ($71) was able to stave them off to score by a neck from Castor with Sun Pioneer third another half-a-length away.
Honest Truth was at a second win in a row having saluted at his last start in a Class 4 speed dash over 1000m. As a proof of his consistency, he improved on his winning time of 59.01secs then by 0.01 second in Sunday's race.
Without taking anything away from Honest Truth, though, the depleted field and the withdrawal of Speedy Dragon from the equation did probably give the win a hollow dimension, but trainer Theo Kieser’s assistant-trainer Mahadi Taib (pictured above) was not complaining.
“No doubt that helped, but our horse still had to go and beat the others and he did it very well. He was in very good form and he didn’t disappoint,” said Mahadi filling in for Kieser who is attending the Magic Millions March Yearling Sale on the Gold Coast.
“As he is now older he has lost a bit of his gate speed. He’s shown he could come from behind but we expected him to lead today.
“We just told Chaves to ride him where he was comfortable but just make sure he does not take any kickback - so leading was the best option. The jockey listened to the instructions and it paid off.”
The Swedish-based Brazilian jockey who was at his first link-up with Honest Truth admitted to feeling a lot more bullish when the four horses made an early exit and that a ninth winner could be his for the taking if he just executed Kieser’s plans to the letter.
“The trainer is not here today but he did tell me what the horse was like. He told me he was a horse who can come from behind or go in front,” said Chaves, who recently extended his Singapore stay until April 24.
“When the four horses came out, I thought I had a better chance to win. As my horse jumped well, I decided to go forward, but when the other horse insisted I was happy to take a sit in second place.
“In the home straight, he gave another kick. He’s a very tough horse and fought very hard all the way to the winning post.”
Honest Truth is raced by the Rocket Fly Stable which carries the same black and white halved colours of the Soh family made famous by Kieser’s top sprinter Super Winner. That ninth win has pushed his prizemoney closer to the $380,000 mark.
