Win Win situation
Patience pays off for trainer David Kok as his new gelding finally scores his second victory
Patience is not only a virtue when a horse stays in his box for almost a year, but it was also the key to quite literally a “Win Win” situation for the Royal Sabah Turf Club’s son of Per Incanto at Kranji on Saturday.
Win Win did give his East Malaysian connections every reason to believe he was well named following a first win at only his fourth start in an Open Maiden race over 1,000m in November 2020.
But the follow-up runs had been more misses than hits, with Kok soon putting the see-sawing graph down to an undercarriage issue.
“He was a colt before and the testicles made him uncomfortable in his races,” said Kok.
“We were looking at a gelding operation, but then he had chips in his fetlocks shortly after his last race (closing fourth in a Novice race over 1,200m last May). Surgery meant six months out, but then, he was still coltish when he came back.
“We thought we might as well perform the castration on him as he was already out. That doesn’t take as long but it’s still another couple of months before he can come back.
“I’d like to thank the owners, the Turf Bloodstock Sabah Stable, the Royal Sabah Turf Club chairman Peter Chin and his committee members for their patience, and I’m happy it’s paid off today.
“A big thank you to the Singapore Turf Club vets as well, especially Dr Dan Shaw, who did the chip surgery.”
By all accounts, the joints moved better, the legs, too – and unimpeded at the rear – as his sparkling trackwork form indicated, especially the 51/4-length barrier trial win under Oscar Chavez last week.
But barrier No. 10 did take the wind out of the sails ahead of his Saturday reprise in the $50,000 Class 4 Division 2 Polytrack event over 1,100m.
“I was confident of a good first-up run. But the wide barrier did bring my confidence down,” said Kok.
“Luckily, the jockey rode a smart race. He was wide but he didn’t chase him up to go to the front... at the top of the straight, I knew they couldn’t lose, the horse was cantering.”
The $12 favourite whizzed on by to score by a widening margin that could have exceeded 53/4 lengths had Oscar Chavez not sat up a long way out.
Bionics (Iskandar Rosman) finished second with Eight Ball (Matthew Kellady) another head away. The time was 1min 05.28sec for the Polytrack 1,100m.
Despite the cakewalk, Kok is understandably not throwing caution to the wind as far as future races go.
“We’ll take it one step at a time. I think he will win in Class 4 again, but I’d like to keep him to 1,200m for now,” said Kok.
“He’s shown no performance on turf yet, so I’ll also keep him to Polytrack.”
With that second success from nine starts, Win Win has now racked up close to $50,000 in prizemoney for the Turf Bloodstock Sabah Stable.
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