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The new pairing of trainer Stephen Gray and Dago Stable are keeping up the win count as they produced a third winner with debutant Lizaz coming up trumps on Sunday.
The New Zealand-bred three-year-old is among a bunch of new recruits Gray trains for his friend Untung Joesoef, with two of them having already given them a taste of victory, Bhaskara and Pusaka on January 23 and 25 respectively.
While the latter two were what Gray called “repossessions” given Joesoef came to the rescue with an offer after the first buyer defaulted, Lizaz was hand-picked from the New Zealand Ready-To-Run sales for the Indonesian businessman from the get-go.
Named Lizaz, which means “good-looking and brave” in Bahasa Indonesian, the son of Alamosa scored a handsome win when he came off a ground-saving run on the rails to put paid to his 13 rivals in the $75,000 Restricted Maiden race over 1200m.
Starting as the second favourite with a quote of $29, Lizaz (Corey Brown) accelerated steadily from the 400m to get the upperhand of $16 favourite Aguila Azteca (Manoel Nunes), who showed the way after jumping smartly from her wide gate. The winning time was 1min 10.87secs for the 1200m on the Short Course.
“He’s a nice horse and I’m happy he’s won as he’s been hard work at the barriers,” said Gray.
“We got him from the trials in New Zealand, but he’s been naughty at his first two trials here. He actually failed the second one and we decided to take Corey off and put Andy (Ismail) on instead as he was too nervous.
“Andy and Smiley (Ruzaili Yatim) have done a good job with him at the barriers, and so did the barrier ground staff who has a very good crew. It goes to show when you work together, you get the results.
“The Alamosas are doing very well and for sure, this guy will get even better over more ground.”
Brown was just as delighted as Gray and concurred with the Kiwi trainer that there was still some work to be done with Lizaz.
“Everything went his way, he travelled in a good spot, but he still doesn’t know what he was doing,” said the Australian rider.
“He did a few things wrong but he will improve a few lengths from that run. He’s a lovely horse and will come right with more runs under his belt.”
Gray and the Dago Stable were in for a busy Sunday as they combined four more times later in the 11-race programme, including their first two winners, Pusaka and Bhaskara. The other two runners were newcomer Al Mirwah and Jawara, but unfortunately for Gray and Joesoef, none of them enjoyed the same success.