Super Tycoon finally lived up to the hype around him when he got off the mark in style at his sixth Kranji start.
Trained by Daniel Meagher at his first three starts when he performed fairly with a second as his best result, the O’Reilly three-year-old was then transferred to trainer Ricardo Le Grange. In two starts, he was again well backed to start as favourite on both occasions, but it would seem that overachiever tag was hard to shake off for the gelding who races in the famous colours worn by Super Easy and Super One – two thirds were the outcome.
But there was still a glimmer of hope Super Tycoon would finally give his connections something to cheer about in Friday night’s $75,000 Restricted Maiden race over 1400m, a race which did not look overly strong on paper. When the field was whittled down to only seven runners after the scratchings of Lim’s Master and Only Win, it was not surprising to see his odds slashed to a prohibitive $7 before the off.
Jockey Barend Vorster certainly rode him like he was the best horse in the field, sending him to the front with New Sensation (John Powell) in close attendance.
He seemed to be cantering as he cornered to salute the judge, but the question on everybody’s lips was would he see it out this time or would one or two from behind see him off again.
The answer came quickly when after a few shakes of the rein, Super Tycoon put daylight between him and the rest very swiftly and rather impressively.
New Sensation could not find a response to that sudden burst, gradually conceding ground to end up six lengths astern, even beaten a short head for second by Energizer (Alan Munro). The winning time was 1min 23.54secs for the 1400m on the Long Course.
With Le Grange back in his native South Africa to attend Saturday’s Durban July in which his stable jockey Nooresh Juglall rides Safe Harbour for Sean Tarry, Vorster was the one to do the honours at the post-race interview at Kranji.
“The couple of runs he has had for us have been to his benefit,” said the South African jockey.
“He’s been running in strong company. He is quite a feisty horse and that’s why I didn’t want him to run off too early.
“He had the other horse up his girth up to 600m, and then he just strode away to a big win.”
