Trainer Leslie Khoo’s former Gold Cup hopeful War Time makes his racing comeback after being sidelined by a bleeding attack this Friday.
The handy stayer was pencilled in for the Group 1 Longines Singapore Gold Cup (2200m) last November after he racked up four wins in a row all under Nooresh Juglall, with three of them coming over 1800m and one over 2200m, indeed a solid trial run for the handicap showpiece.
However, it all went pear-shaped in his bid for a fifth straight success when the Danasinga seven-year-old returned bleeding after running last to Cheetah On Fire. A dejected Khoo had to there and then scrap his Gold Cup plans.
After the mandatory three-month suspension, War Time was still given more time to chill out. Khoo said there was nothing wrong with the Empress Wu Stable-owned galloper, he just hoped an extended downtime would do him a world of good.
With the Gold Cup again around the corner, Khoo had to bring War Time back at some stage and thought this Friday’s $100,000 Open Benchmark 83 race (1100m) would be a good starting point. He has picked his apprentice Desmond Chan Wei Sheng for the ride and has taken the blinkers off his ward in a bid to sharpen him up.
“He’s not 100% but he’s had enough work to be fit for this race. It’s still too short as he wants more ground but I can only hope he runs well,” said the Singaporean handler.
“He bled last year, and you can never tell with bleeders. We have to manage them properly.
“I gave him an easy trial last Thursday and I was pretty happy with that. My track rider said he felt good.
“His weight is good, he’s not fat, but I still think he will need the run on Friday. If all goes well, and he shows his form again at his next races, then I can aim him for the Gold Cup again.”
Should War Time eventually not make the cut for the time-honoured race, Khoo still has his one trump card up his sleeve – Fastnet Dragon.
The Fastnet Rock four-year-old has without a doubt become Khoo’s best horse in the eight years he has trained at Kranji. He oozed class at his four-in-a-row and ironically ran his best race in defeat at his next run when he went head-to-head with big guns Quechua and War Affair in the Group 1 Emirates Singapore Derby (2000m) in July to run an unlucky third under Hugh Bowman.
Khoo, a former champion jockey who never annexed the Gold Cup as a jockey either and who has yet to win a ‘black type’ event as a trainer at Kranji, knows he now has a fighting chance with Fastnet Dragon in the Singapore Triple Crown series made up of the Group 1 Panasonic Kranji Mile (1600m), Group 1 Raffles Cup (1800m) and Longines Singapore Gold Cup.
“Fastnet Dragon is back in work and doing very well. He did two laps of Polytrack this morning,” said Khoo.
“The Gold Cup is his grand final. In the meantime, I will bring him back in the Committee’s Prize first and fingers crossed he goes all right.”
The $200,000 Group 3 Committee’s Prize is a handicap race over the mile and will be run on September 20, two weeks before the Panasonic Kranji Mile.
