New trainer Young Keah Yong’s prolific run into his first full season shows no signs of abatement after he brought his season tally up to 16 winners courtesy of a training double with Berlinetta and D’Great Boss on Friday night.
It was actually an all-up career tally as Desmond Koh’s former assistant-trainer began operations last September, but did not open his account until this year on January 14 with Amistad.
Sometimes, those newcomers see their flow of subsequent wins slow down to a trickle even after that first trigger, but in Young’s case, there has been no scarcity of wins at all.
D'Great Boss (Mark Ewe) makes it back-to-back wins on Friday night, picture Singapore Turf Club
Just this month alone, Young has won six races, a record he shares with James Peters and Hideyuki Takaoka from the 26 trainers at Kranji, and only bettered by Mark Walker on seven wins.
While the win from D’Great Boss, the $14 favourite in the Lucky Last, the $60,000 Class 4 Premier race over 1200m, was more or less expected, it was the win from $134 smokie Berlinetta in the lowly $20,000 Class 5 race over 1700m that gave him a bigger kick.
“It’s great to get a double tonight. D’Great Boss performed as expected even though he was up in class,” said Young.
“I was confident he would run well and that’s why I brought him back after such a short period of time (19 days since his last win at his second start in an 1100m race in Open Maiden company).
“But the win with Berlinetta gave me even more satisfaction. Most people thought he couldn’t win, but he did and I’m very happy for his owners (Advance Stable).”
The Sufficient three-year-old has changed trainers four times before he finally opened his account at his 18th time of asking. Ridden by Nooresh Juglall for the first time, he looked under siege at the 200m, but managed to keep his head above water to post a hard-fought neck-win from The One (Alan Munro) with Evertrust (Wong Chin Chuen) third another 1 ¼ lengths away. The winning time was 1min 47.58secs for the 1700m on the Polytrack.
Sent off the $14 favourite, D’Great Boss (Mark Ewe) was conversely more dominant in his 1 ¼-length win from Arr Flair (Michael Rodd) once he put race-leader Ladrone (Matthew Kellady) astern upon straightening. He clocked 1min 12.44secs for the 1200m on the Polytrack.
If Berlinetta’s win was the one tinged with sentimental value, there was no photo as to which of his two Friday victors had more scope from a future perspective.
“I think D’Great Boss has got even better after his last win. I told Mark to race him handy even though he was drawn wide (nine),” he said.
“He’s got good gate speed and was able to come across easily to sit outside the leader. Once Mark pushed him out, he kicked clear for an easy win.
“With time, I’d like to step him up in distance and put him back over turf as well. He’s a very nice horse.”
Ewe is also enjoying a rather successful season of his own, having now ridden his seventh 2018 winner, the last one coming with D’Great Boss as well.
The former three-time Singapore champion apprentice jockey does not usually get many opportunities to partner the better horses at Kranji these days, but felt he has for once thrown his leg over something out of the box – and you would now need a crowbar to prise him off the Street Boss four-year-old.
“It’s been a while since I rode a good horse like this one,” said the Penang-born hoop.
“He showed ability from Day 1. I thought it’d be a bit hard tonight to be honest, as he was rising in class from Open Maiden to Class 4 company, but he scored a very easy win again.
“I’d like to thank the owner Mr Tang (Tiang Pong) for putting me on such a nice horse. I think he will have a lot of fun with this horse.”
Having now won two of his three races, D’Great Boss has already picked up prize cheques of close to $45,000 for Mr Tang.
