Dream Alliance hard to beat
Kranji Mile runner-up is likely to find the opposition in Class 2 mile race a lot easier
Dream Alliance seldom runs a bad race.
Even when he does – only four or five times in 20 starts – it is either because he is caught wide facing the breeze or he returns lame.
Five wins – all over 1,400m – recorded from maiden to Class 2 company are testament to his natural progression since he came to Singapore in early 2022.
But it was probably in defeat that he ran his best races.
First, there was that agonisingly close second to Lim’s Kosciuszko in the 2023 Singapore Gold Cup (2,000m).
Ironically, Dream Alliance’s distinctively long head could not save him in the photo print – he lost by a short head.
Many thought the world would be his oyster in the middle-distance features, but the strapping galloper could not quite replicate that run.
He was never a factor in the Group 3 Fortune Bowl (1,400m), was held up for a run in the Group 3 Committee’s Prize (1,600m), but flopped again next time out – a ride that cost Brazilian jockey Bruno Queiroz his job.
Just when the son of Into Mischief was starting to fly under the radar, he bounced back when least expected, and at the highest level again, launching a storming run reminiscent of his Gold Cup dash.
Under visiting top jockey Mark Zahra, he was the only horse who dared throw a last-ditch challenge at Lim’s Kosciuszko in the Group 1 Kranji Mile (1,600m) on May 18.
He bowed down to the champion, but the 1¼-length second sent a strong signal that he was back racing at his peak.
A two-month freshen-up, followed by a nice wind-opening barrier trial on July 9, was the perfect formula trainer Tim Fitzsimmons came up with ahead of his next start – the $85,000 Japan Racing Association Trophy Class 2 event over 1,600m, slated as Race 6 in the 10-race programme, on July 21.
With top Hong Kong-based Australian hoop Hugh Bowman taking the reins, he will start at very short odds in the seven-horse field.
The only concern would be the presence of only one pacesetter in Mr Black Back.
Should Manoel Nunes throw out the anchors on the newly Steven Burridge-trained galloper, in the same fashion he snookered Golden Monkey with Ghalib, then Dream Alliance may have his job cut out.
But Mr Black Back is a galloper, as he showed in that July 9 trial when he led all the way to beat Dream Alliance, who was not fully tested, though.
Bowman will give Dream Alliance no chance to loaf around in the last 200m this time, with Mr Black Back even more hard-pushed to stave off other finishers like Cavalry, Raising Sixty-One and Smart Star.
The first two were also in the Kranji Mile beaten brigade and, like Dream Alliance, will use that race as a springboard to the three majors coming up in the last three months of Singapore horse racing.
Last-start winner Smart Star is up in class, but is also hoping to sneak into the Singapore Gold Cup on Oct 5 at a low weight.
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