Gold tix for King Of Sixty-One

Honest stayer King Of Sixty-One did his Singapore Gold Cup hopes no harm after a convincing win in the $70,000 Class 3 race (1,600m) on Aug 18.

The Irish-bred five-year-old grey is among six horses trainer Tim Fitzsimmons has entered for the $1.38 million Group 1 Grand Singapore Gold Cup (2,000m) on Oct 5.

While Lightning Strike and Saint Tropez are at this stage among the standby starters, AJ’s Stable’s King Of Sixty-One should gain a ticket, given his 11th place in the order of entry, along with Golden Monkey (second), Dream Alliance (fourth) and fellow AJ’s stablemate Raising Sixty-One (10th).

The Gold Cup, which can take up to 16 runners, is seven weeks away, but from the way King Of Sixty-One carved his win, Fitzsimmons had no reason to believe he would be out of his depth in, arguably, the most-anticipated race in the 182-year-old history of Singapore racing, sadly, more for bleak reasons.

The time-honoured race will not only be the last of its kind, but will also be staged at the last-ever race meeting held in the Republic.

On 78 points, which are bound to spike up to around 84 points after that latest victory, King Of Sixty-One will still be a whopping 37 points off the top-weight Lim’s Kosciuszko (121 points).

Even with the Singapore Gold Cup handicapping terms tweaked to four points to the kilo instead of two, he will probably still carry the minimum weight of 50kg.

On face value, King Of Sixty-One may not be so well in on weights, but Fitzsimmons believes the handicapping terms give a minnow like him a fair crack at glory.

“He may get into the Gold Cup on 50kg. It will give him something to chase,” said the Australian handler.

“He will still run in the QEII Cup next. It won’t be so easy at level weights, but it’ll give him a nice lead into the Gold Cup.”

Unlike the Singapore Gold Cup, the penultimate feature race, the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup (1,800m) on Sept 7 is held at set weights where King Of Sixty-One will shoulder the same 58kg as Lim’s Kosciuszko, Lim’s Saltoro and Golden Monkey et al.

The Gutaifan five-year-old was actually the one giving weight all round on Aug 18, but acquitted himself admirably under jockey Ryan Curatolo, especially in the concluding stages when Aniki (Bruno Queiroz) would not buckle an inch for the best part of the last 300m.

“Ryan was actually worried he would be taken on by Aniki,” said Fitzsimmons.

“We couldn’t get to the front, and we let Aniki lead in the end. Ryan rode him beautifully.

“He should have won at his last start, but the jockey (Queiroz) gave up the lead, and Always Together beat us.”

Curatolo said that he knew King Of Sixty-One inside out, but he was still mindful not to push the wrong buttons.

“I know this horse by heart,” said the French jockey.

“We need to get going early with him as he’s fairly one-paced. He’ll just keep going at the same speed.

“At one stage, I wanted to go forward, but Bruno was keen to hold the rail.

“So I let my horse stride under his own steam until halfway through the bend when I popped him off the fence and went after Aniki. I wanted to take the race to them.

“Once I called upon him, he responded very well. He’s actually better on turf, so I was actually surprised he did so well on Polytrack.”

King Of Sixty-One, whose previous four wins were all on turf, had to dig deep to overcome the Leslie Khoo-trained Aniki, always a tough cookie when he is left alone up front.

For a while, Aniki, who was the second favourite, seemed to be finding a second wind on the inside, which was not so surprising after he got away with cheap sectionals for most of the event.

But sheer grit and determination saw King Of Sixty-One ($19) slowly but surely gain the ascendancy to cross the line first with one length to spare.

Smart Star (Manoel Nunes) came from last to take third place another 2¼ lengths away. The winning time was 1min 39.2sec for the 1,600m on the Polytrack.

King Of Sixty-One’s stablemate and fellow Gold Cup nominee Saint Tropez (Wong Chin Chuen) also contested that race, but after settling in third place, could not quicken when the chips were down.

He ran fifth, more than five lengths off King Of Sixty-One.

 

manyan@sph.com.sg