Punters were left licking their wounds after rank-outsider Blue Danube shot all predictions to pieces with a mammoth $362 payout in the $80,000 Class 3 race over 1700m on Polytrack on Sunday.
One person who was not feeling the “blues” was his trainer Desmond Koh, though. Even if the Argentinian-bred, who never lived up to the glowing Argentinian Group 1 credentials he came with when known as Blues Traveler – only one win in 27 starts at Kranji to show for – he felt it was a matter of time before he pops up again.
“We actually liked him at his last five runs,” said Koh who is Blue Danube’s fourth trainer after Michael Clements, Patrick Shaw (who trained him to his only Kranji win in a BM97 over 2000m in March 2016) and Ricardo Le Grange, taking over in June last year.
Blue Danube (Ng Choon Kiat) lands a shock win on Sunday, picture Singapore Turf Club
“I would actually say he was back in form looking at those past runs, but he was not in the right race. I told the owner Joshua Tan to be patient and I will look for a suitable race for him.
“We put him in this Polytrack race with two turns, and he was also down in class. He actually beat Order Of The Sun twice, which to me says a lot (Note: Blue Danube won a Kranji Stakes A race over 2000m on October 4, 2015, but was later disqualified after he returned positive to a prohibited substance – betamethasone - with the race then awarded to the Koh-trained Order Of The Sun).
“He’s a horse with ability, but he doesn’t quite show it in his runs. To me, it’s more mental than anything.”
The race was probably won when his rider, apprentice jockey Ng Choon Kiat, decided to throw caution to the wind at the halfway mark – press on to make up for his inability to do so earlier.
When Blue Danube kicked clear at the top of the straight, his better-backed rivals were still biding their time, probably thinking such a longshot would be left a sitting duck soon.
While favourite Nepean (John Powell) would not be the one to lead that charge as he started to back-pedal from the top of the straight, the fast-closing Magic Wand (Nooresh Juglall) and Claudia’s Beauty (Glen Boss) were looking odds-on to gobble up the bunny.
To everybody’s shock – bar Koh - Blue Danube, however, kept racing with a lot of heart all the way to the line. The Equal Stripes six-year-old went on to greet the judge with half-a-length to spare from Claudia’s Beauty, who beat Magic Wand for second place by a similar margin. The winning time was 1min 46.69secs for the 1700m on Polytrack.
Ng, who only just came back from an elbow injury, said he was in a bit of strife when he could not follow the instructions to the letter in the first 800m.
“I was asked to go forward, but he got checked, and I got no chance to keep going,” said Mark Walker’s apprentice jockey.
“I then decided to wait until they (horses in front) took a sit. When they did, I decided to try and go again, and this time it paid off.
“I went early with him as he’s a one-paced horse, he doesn’t really have a bit more to fire. Luckily, he was able to last.”
A stakes winner of more than US$122,000 in Argentina courtesy of five wins, Blue Danube has now taken his local record to two wins from 29 starts for prizemoney in excess of the $130,000 mark for the Jubilant Racing Stable.
