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A renewal of old ties between trainer Alwin Tan and jockey Mohd Zaki gathered more steam after they recombined for a second 2018 win on Friday night.
After getting off to a winning start on New Year’s Day with My Gold, the pairing has now added a second win within four weeks with Nova Classic ($76) in the $20,000 Open Maiden race over 1400m.
Zaki has not quite figured at the top of Tan’s most dialled numbers in his eight years of booking riders at Kranji, but they did win two races together before – Work Ahead and Daring Fighter in 2011.
Tan said he might not have often used the Kelantan-born senior rider in the past, but they actually go back a long way - back to the days when Tan was then assistant-trainer to Japanese handler Hideyuki Takaoka, Zaki’s former master.
But with the shake-up in the Kranji riding ranks following the non-renewal of six licences this season, previously untapped bookings suddenly surfaced – and one of them may well be that of Tan and Zaki.
“Zaki and I have had some luck this year for sure,” said a beaming Tan as he led in his fourth winner of the year.
“I’ve known him since the days when I was with Takaoka and he was his apprentice jockey. He’s always been a hard worker.
“As we all know, he is good on frontrunners and I thought this horse (Nova Classic) would suit his riding style.
“I just got him from Lee Freedman and he had two runs for me before tonight. I noticed he was a one-pacer and I decided to remove all his gear and put on the earmuffs as he is quite nervous.
“I told Zaki to go forward from the wide gate, and he rode him to instructions. A big thank you to the owners (Nova Racing Stable) for their support.”
Zaki, who brought up only five winners last year but has already two to his name barely a month into the new season, was grateful for the shot in the arm from his former Takaoka colleague in this new campaign.
“Thank you to Alwin for the support. We’ve been quite lucky this year and I hope it continues,” he said.
“He told me to ride this horse forward. He jumped well and found the lead quite easily and turning for home, I had plenty of horse under me and I knew he would be hard to beat.”
Favourite Basilisk (Olivier Placais) did steam home on the outside but the break that Nova Classic, a Brazilian-bred four-year-old by Public Speaker, had established upon straightening proved unassailable in the end.
The winning margin was one and three-quarter lengths with Classic (Matthew Kellady) third another two and three-quarter lengths away. The winning time was 1mn 23.94secs for the 1400m on Long Course.