Major King set to rule again after trial victory
Major King is the real deal. He has shown ability at the races and, on Tuesday morning, he strutted his stuff at the trials.
Ridden by Manoel Nunes, he showed abundant speed and led all the way in the second heat over the Polytrack 1,000m.
Sure, he received some nudging over the final furlong when threatened by last-start winner Renzo.
But that was when the “class” in him rose to the surface. When the going got tough, Major King got going.
With Nunes digging in, Major King held off the challenger to win by a nose. The pair left third-placed Flaming Migliore (Krisna Thangamani) wallowing in their wake, five lengths adrift.
Already with four wins to show from just nine outings at Kranji, Major King must be a delight to have in the yard.
Then again, credit must go to Jason Ong who has not rushed his five-year-old, who ran a fair seventh in the Group 3 Rocket Man Sprint (1,200m) in his last start.
Racegoers thought they would see more of Major King after he scored on debut.
That was in June last year. Following that, he ran a gallant third to Golden Monkey in the 2022 Group 2 Singapore Three-Year-Old Classic (1,400m).
But Ong played it safe and after just one more run in 2022 – on Aug 18 – Major King made his first appearance in 2023 to run third behind Nate’s Champion on April 16.
The rest is history. He then went on to chalk up three more wins – and, on the strength of Tuesday’s winning trial in a swift 59.68sec, there must surely be more victories in the pipeline.
Bruno Queiroz, who rode a treble last Sunday, won the other two trials on Tuesday morning.
His winners were Charismatic in the first and Ace Sovereign in the third and final trial.
Trained by Leslie Khoo, four-year-old Charismatic led from the get-go and won by a shorthead in a decent 1min 00.84sec.
From Tim Fitzsimmons’ yard, Ace Sovereign clocked 1:01.32 when coming from a long way back to beat Te Akau Ben (apprentice jockey Clyde Leck) and Geobels Glory (Ronnie Stewart).
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