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The $95,000 Open Benchmark 97 Hong Kong Jockey Club Trophy (1600m) boasted a quality field that was not short of winning hopes, but in the end, it was the less-fancied runner Freezemaster who landed the money.
Photo by Singapore Turf Club
With all the attention cast on the likes of Better Life, Dujardin, Rafaga and Cash Luck, many have neglected the chances of Freezemaster, who despite being a three-time winner, is not usually regarded as a model of consistency.
But following a well-planned strategy, the Steven Burridge-trained gelding under an inspired ride by apprentice Koh Teck Huat, stole a march on his rivals to upstage $17 second favourite Better Life (Alan Munro) while $14 favourite Dujardin (Joao Moreira) did not quite ping to run fourth beaten by two lengths for third place by Let’s See Action (Barend Vorster).
Freezemaster, a five-year-old by Reset, paid $46 for the win and recorded the winning time of 1min 36.69secs. He is raced by the Hippocrates Stable, whose main track rider Mick Lockett was highly instrumental in giving the right guidance to the winning rider.
“It’s all thanks to Mick. He told me how to ride the horse and I just rode to his instructions,” said a modest Koh, playing down his part in the victory, the gelding’s fourth from only 10 starts.
“Mick said he’s a horse who needs to be pushed all the time. I bounced him out quickly, then I pushed and pushed and then whipped.
“I kept doing this and gave him a breather in between. The idea was to make them run and hopefully they wouldn’t catch him in the straight with his light weight.”
Koh carried out Lockett’s instructions to the letter, as was evidenced by the fairly strung out field with about 20 lengths between Freezemaster and the tail-ender from the backstraight.
The ploy certainly came to fruition when the swoopers tried to descend on him at the 300m, with Better Life and Dujardin, who had both settled in midfield, leading the charge. But Freezemaster was anything but a spent force as he pulled away again instead of coming back to them.
Drawing from his reserve, Freezemaster held all comers at bay under Koh’s persuader to fall in by three-quarter-of-a-length from classy mare Better Life, who has certainly lost no admirers in defeat considering she was conceding as much as 9.5kg to the winner.
“He’s been a bit of an in-and-out performer. Whenever we expected him to win, he threw it away, either by running a shocker or getting checked in the race,” said Burridge.
“His last run was ordinary, he got sandwiched between runners at the one before. But he got it right today, especially with no weight on his back.
“He beat a pretty strong field today and I hope he can continue on that run. He’s certainly got the ability, but he can be unpredictable at times.
“Young Koh did a good job on him, too. Credit must also go to the whole team behind, my wife Julie, Mick and Jacqui (Harrison).”
With that latest success, Freezemaster has now secured stakes money over the $180,000 mark for Dr Tan Kai Chah’s Hippocrates Stable.