3 minute read
Leading Melbourne jockey Ben Melham and Cerdan combined on Good Friday to share the same milestone of scoring their first win at Kranji, but that is where the similarities end.
While the Golden Slipper-winning hoop was right on target at his very first ride in Singapore, Cerdan, who made his Singapore debut more than three years ago on March 22, 2015, had had to wait until his 24th start to finally get the monkey off his back.
Any jockey who rides a winner at the very first time of asking at a new venue will be chuffed no end, but to pull the feat off on a horse who could not find the line with as many as 17 jockeys, it does give an extra sense of pride and achievement.
Especially that among that long list of unsuccessful jockeys figure some of the finest riders on the planet. Joao Moreira, the maestro himself, Alan Munro, Michael Rodd, Manoel Nunes, Glen Boss, Vlad Duric, William Pike, Matthew Chadwick, to name a few.
But Melham was not taking any extra credit for being the one to have found the key to the Danewin five-year-old. The 30-year-old was just happy he broke through early at a place that has always been on his bucket list of countries where he would like to ride one day.
“Singapore is a place I’d like to ride in longer term at some stage in my career. It’s nice to kick off on the right note today,” said Melham, a winner of over 1,000 races, mostly in Melbourne, but a few in Sydney of late.
“I’m really rapt to get the opportunity to ride here through Cliff (Brown) and his filly (Filibuster) in the big race later (Group 3 Singapore Three-Year-Old Sprint). I’ve never really ridden overseas that much, only Hong Kong once and New Zealand.
“I understand some jockeys had a few cracks at this horse. He was never in doubt, he got in a beautiful rhythm once we got an easy lead and gave me another kick in the straight.
“The Polytrack was not a problem at all as I’m used to riding on similar all-weather tracks back home.”
Named after legendary French boxer Marcel Cerdan, the $26 shot certainly seemed to have found his best punch under Melham’s guidance throughout the 1100m journey of the $20,000 Conflight 2016 Stakes, an Open Maiden race.
Cerdan looked on the ropes when Silver Sky (Saifudin Ismail) and Belt And Road (Wong Chin Chuen) shaped up as the only two opponents who could spoil his party as they came charging home with a stiff challenge.
But that elusive winning post finally arrived on time for Cerdan’s long-suffering Arexevan Racing Stable owners when their prize fighter picked himself off the canvas to fall in by half-a-length from Silver Sky with Belt And Road third another short head away. The winning time was 1min 7.21secs for the 1100m journey on the Polytrack.
With eight placings on his record, Cerdan has now topped his overall earnings up to around the $80,000 mark, not a record which will go down as the best investment return in the history of horse racing, but Robert Sim, one of Arexevan’s shareholders could not care less. The boys in orange and blue spots will party hard into the night.
“We were running out of jockeys for this horse, and it’s taken Magic Melham to do it!” said Sim, not without some tongue-in-cheek humour given ‘Magic’ is often used as Moreira’s middle name.
“We’ve actually given a few jockeys their first winner before like Fran Berry (Thrilla in Manila in 2009), Steven King (Divine Hero in 2013) and now Ben Melham. It’s great.”
Previously handled by nine-time Singapore champion trainer Laurie Laxon, Cerdan is now prepared by Laxon’s successor, Lee Freedman.
“He was eventually going to win a race and I thought he was well placed in this race,” said the former Melbourne multiple-champion trainer.
“Ben rode him perfect and it’s terrific for the guys.”