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French jockey Olivier Placais was all smiles after he steered Little Big Man to a resounding win in the Lucky Last on Sunday.
Not only the Showcasing five-year-old’s win in the $60,000 Class 4 Premier race saved his day after his previous four rides all missed out, but he was also glad he had got back on a horse he seems to have forged a successful rapport with.
From three associations with the Thai-owned and Lee Freedman-trained galloper, Placais has now notched two wins.
Nooresh Juglall was the one aboard Little Big Man when a fast-finishing third to Nimitz in a similar Class 4 Premier race over 1400m three weeks ago, but “The Conductor” – as he is affectionately known at Kranji – was back in the saddle on Sunday, and to winning effect.
Placais was indeed grateful for the nod from connections as he could not ride Little Big Man at that last race, having already committed to Hideyuki Takaoka’s Higher Soul –who incidentally ran fifth.
“I’d like to thank Lee and the owner, for putting me back on as they didn’t have to,” he said.
“I like this horse a lot but I had already accepted another ride for Mr Takaoka at his last start, and I couldn’t come back on my words. I never do that, anyway.
“I won on him once and the last time I rode him, he was on Polytrack and he doesn’t like that.
“Today, I thought he was my best chance of the day even if I also gave Cerdan (also trained by Freedman) a good chance, too, but his run was too bad to be true, though he also lost a shoe.
“I galloped Little Big Man last Wednesday and I was confident of his chances today, more so when the field was not overly strong.
“I was in eight in the gates, but he had a nice run in transit. Vlad (Duric on Lim’s Bullet) tried to keep me closed up in the straight, which is what we all do in competitive riding, but it actually helped me save some petrol.
“Once he saw daylight, he pinged very well for a very nice win.”
Placais needn’t have worried too much about whether he would be reinstated on Little Big Man as Freedman said he was the first name he thought of when the handicaps came out.
“Olivier gets on very well with this horse and he rode him very well again,” said the Australian mentor.
“He’s a horse who loves 1400m on turf; he goes remarkably well on that course and distance. What’s for sure is he won’t run on the Polytrack again.”
Having scored one race earlier with Panache, Freedman was actually rounding out the nine-race programme with a late double, which incidentally enabled him conserve the driving seat in the Singapore trainer’s premiership.
Joint-leader Shane Baertschiger had kicked clear with a double earlier (Galileo’s Approach and Dinghu Mountain) but Freedman waited for the last two races to draw back on levels on 28 winners apiece but stays on top on a better countback for seconds.
“These two horses were good chances and they duly won. I left it late, but it’s better late than never as the old cliché goes,” he said.
Backed down to $15 favouritism, Little Big Man produced the best finish inside the last 300m to beat Imperial Falls (Michael Rodd) by one and three-quarter lengths with race-leader Crazy Dreams (Shafrizal Saleh) holding on gamely for third place another short head away. The winning time was 1min 23.13 secs for the 1400m on the Long Course.
With that fourth win, Little Big Man takes his prizemoney past the $200,000 mark for the Falcon Racing No 2 Stable.