Jockey Nooresh Juglall was a touch emotional after he steered Song To The Moon to a fighting win in the $60,000 Macau Jockey Club Trophy, an Open Benchmark 67 race over 1900m on Sunday.

The Mauritian rider dedicated the win to his mother who is currently recovering from surgery back in his hometown.

“My mum just had surgery back home. The operation went well and she is now recovering,” said Juglall.

“I’m flying back to Mauritius on Tuesday to be by her side. This win is for her.”

The current leading jockey (on nine wins – he later rode a treble courtesy of Fortune Bowl winner Big Brother and Constance’s Spirit) was blowing hard after the race. He said he had to earn every penny of his riding fee to get the Savabeel four-year-old home.

“I like this horse a lot, even if he’s not an easy horse to ride,” he said.

“He was hanging in so badly, but he does that all the time. If he didn’t hang in so much, he should have won a lot more easily.

“Two starts back, he was coming home nicely, but he took a bump from another horse. He’s also a big horse and it’s very hard to get his momentum back.

“A big thank you to Ricardo (Le Grange) and the owner for this ride.”

Le Grange has always held the New Zealand-bred four-year-old in high esteem, with lofty goals such as the Emirates Singapore Derby already pencilled in. That fourth Kranji win from nine runs was certainly another tick in the box - and also a good omen given last year’s winner of the Macau Jockey Club Trophy was eventual Derby winner Well Done.

“I’ll have to get him up in his ratings now, all towards his campaign for better races,” said the South African trainer.

“Look, his win today wasn’t very pretty but he’s a stayer in the making and he’s done a good job with 59kg on his back.”

Le Grange was also happy with the second place of the least-fancied third of his trio, Mighty Emperor (Olivier Placais, $47 – he also had Super Joe on $37), especially given the way he had to be hard ridden from a long way out.

“Mighty Emperor ran a great second. Olivier rode him exactly the way I wanted,” said Le Grange.

After taking a sit outside leader Starperfect (Matthew Kellady) from the start, Mighty Emperor was given a few tastes of the persuader as early as the 800m mark.

Responding to the aggressive riding, the South African-bred drew level with Starperfect before going for broke at the top of the straight.

But his better fancied stablemate Song To The Moon ($18 favourite) had followed his every move and issued a stiff challenge at the 300m.

Mighty Emperor seemed to have come to the end of his tether, but as Song To The Moon laid in on him, it seemed to spark a second wind in him. He looked able to reel his stable companion in, but half-a-length separated them in the end.

Billy Britain (Alan Munro) ran third another three parts of a length away. The winning time was 2min 0.27secs for the 1900m on the Polytrack.