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Leading jockey Joao Moreira added another four-timer to his unstoppable winning streak after he rode Special Encore, Masthead, Freezemaster and Michael to victory in quick succession on Sunday.
Photo by Singapore Turf Club
With already 53 winners under his belt, the Brazilian has now brought the ever-widening gap in the Singapore jockey's premiership to 37 winners over next best Danny Beasley.
It may be early days, but it would take a brave soul to bet against the two-time Singapore champion jockey notching a third-consecutive title and breaking yet another record.
After Moreira smashed his own 2010 record of 116 wins by reaching the amazing figure of 153 wins last year, this year's final haul may well tease the unimaginable mark of 250 winners if his current score is extrapolated.
Freezemaster's resounding 2 ¼-length win in the $75,000 Progress race over 1600m on Polytrack also underlined another one of the factors that is contributing to his above-average strike rate.
The Steven Burridge-trained Reset four-year-old blew his rivals away when he scored by more than nine lengths with one-kilo claiming jockey Matthew Kellady aboard to register his first Kranji win second-up two weeks ago.
Facing a rise in grade in Sunday's race, the reins were however handed over to Moreira, who did not have to do much to get the nod from the connections.
“Though Matthew rode him before, he didn't need a claim this time as he had only 52 kg being up in class,” explained Moreira.
“(Owner) Dr Tan (Kai Chah) didn't have any 'titubear' about putting me on. It's a Spanish word that means he had no doubt about that.
“The way the horse won at his last start, I knew he would be competitive again even though he was up in class.
“He jumped well but was a little fresh for a few strides and then he settled good for me. I was pretty happy where he was in the running.
“In the home straight, once he was able to see daylight, he put the race away in a couple of strides.
“I told Dr Tan and Steven they had a very good horse in him and if they look well after him – as they do to all their horses anyway – I am confident he will be a much better horse in a couple of months' time.”
Burridge seemed to concur with the jockey as he may even be considering the upcoming Singapore Four-Year-Old Challenge as a possible target.
“With the step-up in class, he was nicely in on weights today,” said Burridge. “There was nothing left in the month and I thought why not give him a run on the Polytrack.
“I will now look at racing him in some better grade races later on - maybe the four-year-old series.”
Sent out the $8 favourite, Freezemaster jumped straight from his barrier No 1 into the box-seat, nicely tucked away behind pacesetter Super Jetset (Ivaldo Santana) and Shining Glory (Jacky Low) by his side.
The order changed little to the home turn when Moreira started to get busy on Freezemaster who immediately responded with a nice turn of foot to sweep past the leaders before posting a comfortable victory. Jet Stream ran on late for second while Shining Glory plugged away for third another 1 ½ lengths away. The winning time was 1min 39.18secs.