Relentless, our four year old gelding scored the biggest win of his career when he won the S$150,000 Group 2 Stewards Cup 1600M for 4yo at Kranji this afternoon.
The win was Arexevan Racing's sixth feature race win on the Malayan Racing Association circuit and our first in eight years since Trudeau won the 2014 Piala Emas Sultan Selangor.
The win provided four time Singapore champion jockey Vlad Duric with a triumphant return to Kranji on his first day of a short term licence after a six month sabbatical back in Australia.
Getting Vlad to ride the horse in today's race was a combination of good luck, good planning and good fortune. Vlad had indicated he would be coming back to Singapore for the four year old feature races two weeks ago. At that time our good friend Manoel Nunes was going to ride Relentless and Tiger Roar on the same day. Relentless ran very impressively over 1600M at Class 3 level but a few races later, Tiger Roar dominated a Class 3 field over 1200M that lead Nunes to go with that horse in the Stewards Cup. That left us the chance to engage Vlad who had first won for us on Hint more than a decade ago and who also had a victory on Relentless at his first try over a mile in 2021.
Relentless' win was also a triumph for trainer Tim Fitzsimmons who "doubled up" after claiming his first feature race just a week ago when Golden Monkey claimed the G3 Singapore 3yo Sprint.
The race panned out very well for Relentless who was given a perfect ride by Vlad Duric. The wide draw proved to be no problem given the two natural leaders Lim's Kosciuszko and Red Ocean drew wider and went forward to lead. The fast pace and a strung out field gave Duric the opportunity to find the rail and save ground before switching to the outside and running down Lim's Kosciuszko about thirty metres from the post.
Next stop will be the G1 Singapore Derby over 1800 M on the 17th July. We would expect most of the horses that ran in today's race to back up in the Derby that is worth S$400,000 in 2022. Tiger Roar who finished third today with a rushed preparation and who has an excellent record on the Kranji long course will likely start favorite over Lim's Kosciusko and Relentless who will be having their first start over 1800 metres.
Relentless improved his record to 15 starts for 5w-2s-3t and about $260,000 in stakes.
Click Here to see Relentless winning the Group 2 Stewards Cup