Promising three-year-old Countofmontecristo franked the form shown at his impressive winning debut of a month ago with a second-up win that again spoke volumes of his budding potential.
Lined up in Friday’s $75,000 HJM Asia Cup, a Novice race over 1200m, and sent out as the $12 first elect, the New Zealand-bred son of little-known sire Echoes Of Heaven (x Encosta De Lago) was again quick into stride from barrier No 2 to lead out from two other debut winners in Aotearoa (Manoel Nunes) and Forever Young (Derreck David).
While he did not clear out the same way he did at his first run when ridden by Mohd Zaki, that great will to win was the factor that again got him over the line.
Second favourite Sir Issac (Michael Rodd) issued a serious challenge when he snuck up on the inside at the 300m, but with the gap narrowing as Countofmontecristo hung in under pressure for new partner Glen Boss, Sir Isaac seemed to shy away.
There was probably a bit of a brushing contact between the two, but Countofmontecristo never let up and in the end repelled the assault with great merit to prevail by half-a-length.
After finally opening his winning account at his last run, Sir Isaac had to settle for second place this time, 1 ¾ lengths clear of third-placed Forever Young. The winning time was 1min 9.64secs for the 1200m on the Long Course.
Winning trainer Michael Clements, who was not on hand to see the first win as he was then on the Gold Coast attending the Magic Millions yearling sale, certainly liked what he saw.
“He won a very good race first-up and his condition has really picked up since then,” said the Zimbabwean-born conditioner.
“He’s obviously a very good horse moving up and tonight, we expected him to step up to the mark, and he did.
“We will set him towards the Singapore Three-Year-Old Challenge, but I will run him in another couple of races first.
“He is a push-button type of horse and from the way he keeps finding, I see no reason why he cannot go further.”
The Singapore Three-Year-Old Challenge is a series that Countofmontecristo’s owner Joe Singh made a clean sweep of with his showstopper Gingerbread Man in 2011. It begins with the Group 3 Singapore Three-Year-Old Sprint (1200m) on March 26, moves on to the Group 2 Singapore Three-Year-Old Classic (1400m) on April 14 before winding up with the grand final, the Group 1 Singapore Guineas (1600m) on May 14.
Boss said Singh’s new youngster was still green but had plenty of upsides which could certainly see him become a major player in the series.
“He’s a horse with plenty of talent, but he’s still very raw,” said the three-time Melbourne Cup-winning hoop.
“He was very green in the straight, like he couldn’t find his way. He had no idea what he was doing and was just doing it on raw ability.
“The other horse (Sir Isaac) chased him down but my bloke did a good job to hold him off. He’s got a good attitude and I’m sure he can go further, up to a mile.”
With those two wins from as many starts, Countofmontecristo has already banked in close to $85,000 in prizemoney.
