Classy galloper Red Beard bounced back to the winner’s circle after nearly one year when he scored a stylish win in the $125,000 Kranji Stakes A race over 1400m on Sunday.
Photo by Singapore Turf Club
The Zenno Rob Roy five-year-old has not saluted since his slashing victory in an Open race over 1400m on June 24, 2012, a performance that set him up as one of the favourites for the Emirates Singapore Derby (2000m), but an upside-down race galloping from the front saw him tailing off badly to a clear last behind Chase Me in the Group 1 four-year-old event.
The build-up after that abject run had been slow, with runs better described as forgettable, culminating to his transfer from Bruce Marsh to Shane Baertschiger this year.
The first run for his new trainer, however, brought shades of his old self when he stormed home from the rear to run fourth to Masthead, just under four lengths away, in a 1200m race on Singapore Airlines International Cup night on May 19.
Having put the writing on the wall, Red Beard brought his comeback trail to a fruitful conclusion courtesy of a confident ride from jockey Corey Brown on Sunday.
Jumping smartly from the second-worst gate (8), Red Beard found himself landing in a prominent spot from the off, sitting on the girth of noted frontrunner Keep Away (Mohd Zaki). Brown did not press on, content to let his mount take a breather in that handy position, waiting for the home straight to pop the question.
As he does when he gets away to cheap sectionals in front, Keep Away proved hard to get past for a handful of strides, but class prevailed in the end as Red Beard wore him down to steadily pull away to a 1 ¼-length win. Keep Away kept on gamely to hold second spot with Running Tall (Danny Beasley) flashing home from near last to run third another neck away. The winning time was 1min 21.39secs.
“I’ve had him for only two runs, but on his first-up fourth, we were expecting him to run good today, especially over a more suitable distance,” said Baertschiger.
“He cut across nicely from his wide draw and Corey didn’t have a choice but to let him go forward once he got going.
“We’ll just take it easy with him now. The more important today was to see him back on track.”
Red Beard now boasts a proud record of seven wins and two placings from 15 runs for stakes earnings past the $350,000 mark for the Auric Stable.
Brown, who has had a quiet weekend following his thumping record of five wins from last weekend, was glad he had finally visited the winner’s enclosure. Besides finishing second aboard Over Easy and third aboard Max Velocity, the Australian jockey was also beaten aboard two favourites, Clutha Lad and Holy Empire before Red Beard saved his day.
“Finally! It was getting a bit frustrating, but it’s all good now,” said Brown whose two-month tenure at Kranji draws to an end on June 30.
“I’ve watched his replays and I’ve found out this horse needs a bit of a rev-up to get going. Let's just say you just need to make him do things.
“I gave him a push from the start, and he hit the ground running really well. I realised that was not his usual pattern of racing, and a more ideal position would have been 1-1, but we didn’t have a good draw.
“But he kicked well when I slapped him up once we turned the corner, but I have to say he was a bit reluctant to run away from the other horse.
“He went right through with it in the end and won a nice race."
