Keep an eye on Nowyousee
The best from yesterday's seven trials at Kranji
Nowyousee is one of those horses we come across so often. Doggedly good and honest as they come, he will always be a matinee idol - never the star.
Hardly fair, but that's how the chips sometimes fall.
Out of the top four just twice in his 12-race career, Nowyousee has so far banked in more than $300,000 for his owners, the Titanium Racing Stable.
It's a staggering statement of intent from the four-year-old son of O'Reilly.
The great thing is, he's not done yet.
He was strikingly good in the last four months of 2018. Sent to the races just five times, he posted three wins and two seconds.
Sitting on a hat-trick and gunning for a four-bagger on Jan 1, he saw his charge for victory come grinding to a halt in the New Year Cup.
Obliged to race wide and without cover throughout the contest, he faded to finish sixth in the 1,200m race won by Constant Justice.
But don't be too hasty in forgetting who he is. Indeed, when you next see his name appear on a racecard, bring out that red marker and pen a circle around it.
In my book at least, Nowyousee could soon be back to his winning ways.
From James Peters yard, he was at the trials yesterday morning where he didn't put a hoof wrong, winning that 1,000m hit-out in a smart time of 60.19sec.
Like he does in his races, Nowyousee preferred to stay in the slipstream of the leaders - and yesterday that early lead was shared by Imperium and Poseidon, who went at breakneck speed over the initial 700m.
No worries. Jockey Daniel Moor sat quietly on Nowyousee, saving it all for the short run home on the Poly.
A hundred and fifty metres out and Moor said "go". Nowyousee took that to mean go to the front. That, he did and though he won by a head, the manner in which he took the trial did seem to suggest he is race-fit.
Earlier in the morning, in the first trial actually, we had a preview of what a horse named In The Black was capable of doing on the racetrack.
And by that, I mean, blitzing them.
Trained by David Hill and ridden by Harry Kasim, In The Black never gave his four rivals a look-in when winning in a canter.
Driven out of the gates like a a straying husband trying to outrun a shotgun, he soon put daylight between himself and the chasing pack, led by a three-year-old named Mr Fat Kiddy.
Into the straight and In The Black had a four-length break on the rest and although not touched with the persuader, he still pulled away to win by more than seven lengths.
With the rails parked eight metres out for all the trials, he clcoked a smart time of 61.17sec for the trip.
In The Black is a three-year-old American-bred who has, most certainly, inherited the speed of his sire Trinniberg, who in 2012 won the Group 1 Breeders' Cup Sprint at Santa Anita.
Wait for him to go to the races. He could keep you "in the black".
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