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Trainer Tan Hor Khoon reached a major milestone in his 15-year-long career when the aptly-named Awesome handed him his 300th winner on Friday night.
Licensed since 2001, the low-profile Singaporean trainer has never had big teams or champions under his care, but through hell and high water, does his best to grind out winners with his best season being by far 2011 when he saddled an all-time best of 32 winners, including the Group 2 Queen Elizabeth II Cup and Group 3 Fortune Bowl with Fatkid.
Those heady times have not quite been matched again, but the 55-year-old has certainly been making his presence felt in the last couple of seasons. This year, Tan has already brought home 13 winners, more than half of whom have been supplied by his new owner, the ATL Stable.
It was precisely that relatively new local outfit who provided Tan with the landmark win on Friday night, thanks to Awesome who unleashed a pulsating finish in the $60,000 Open Benchmark 67 race over 1000m to come up trumps.
The son of Showcasing, who ran a brave third to Conflight in the Group 3 Dester Singapore Three-Year-Old Sprint (1200m), normally runs closer to the pace, but benefitting from a patient ride from first-time partner Nooresh Juglall, he was able to show a different facet to his register.
Tan had no idea he was reaching his third century, and only found out when trainer Steven Burridge, representing the Association of Racehorse Trainers Singapore gave him a bottle of champagne at the winner’s area, and said: “Well done HK! It couldn’t have happened to a better man!”
A startled Tan for a second thought it was some candid camera moment as the race was anything but a feature race, but his face lit up when he was told of his achievement.
“I didn’t know. I don’t keep track of such things, but it’s a great feeling. I’m very happy!” said Tan, who did his formative years in Singapore and Macau with ex-trainer Charles Leck.
“We don’t have many horses, but we’ve done okay over the years. 300 winners in 15 years, that’s not bad at all – an average of 20 winners a year.
“Thanks to my owners for their support and also my brother (assistant-trainer) Hor Kiat and all my stable staff.”
Tan went on to dissect the third win of Awesome, letting in he had devised a new tactical plan after he took cognizance of the speedmap.
“My horse has gate speed and he normally follows close to the pace, but I knew there’d be a lot of fast horses in the race tonight, like Mastermind, Cairo and Sure Win,” said Tan.
“I told Juglall to ride him more quietly and when I saw them going so fast early, I was smiling. He’s a small horse but he has a big heart.
“I will cap his races to 1200m, though. He’s a pure sprinter.”
The Mauritian jockey who was at a riding double, after saluting earlier aboard the Patrick Shaw-trained The General, was glad his very first winning ride for Tan had come at such an auspicious occasion.
“HK has been giving me a few rides lately, and I’m happy I’ve finally ridden a winner for him,” said Juglall.
“It’s even better it’s happening at his 300th win. I hope HK will support me with more rides from now on!”
Juglall said he had studied Awesome’s form and went into the race brimming with confidence.
“I’ve never ridden Awesome, but I know he has plenty of ability. He ran third to Conflight in the first Leg of the 3YO Challenge which is a strong formline and he has been running over 1200m, so I know he can run on over 1000m if they roll along,” he said.
“The pace was very fast and I was very confident all the while as he was travelling so relaxed in fourth place. He scored a very gutsy win in the end.”
Awesome ($24) defeated Rich Fortune (Manoel Nunes) by one length with Keen Dragon (Shafiq Rizuan) third another head away. The winning time was 59.16 seconds for the 1000m on Polytrack.
The win has taken Awesome’s prizemoney past the $125,000 mark for the ATL Stable.