Evergreen galloper Wealthy Man made light of his poor wet track record and his age to score an upset win in Fridays nights Class 1 contest over 1200m at Taipa.
Wealthy Man was fired out of the gates by apprentice Charles Perkins to lead and from then on had the race in his keeping, running away over the final two hundred to win easily over noted wet trackers Good Uncle (Stanley Chin) and race favorite Lucky Twin Star (Fausto Durso).
Wealthy Man, a rising eight year old has been a great money-spinner for his owners Lau Fu Wing and Tse Kam Po right from day one when he first arrived in Macau from New Zealand as an unraced griffin.
A son of Danzighill from the Trustful mare Tatt’s M’Name, Wealthy Man has now won 10 races and placed 11 times from his 37 starts, and is getting close the $4 million HKD mark in earnings.
The gelding has proved adept on both turf and sand but until Friday night had been a failure on wet tracks.
Trainer Steven Chow has done a fine job with Wealthy Man who placed at Group 1 level in the Macau –Hong Kong Trophy in 2011, with his biggest win to date the Group 2 Director’s Cup in June of last year also with Charles Perkins on top.
Perkins on 26 winners for this season is set to pick up his second Champion Apprentice Title at the end of August which has been a remarkable effort with around four months out through injury.
The young Frenchman has ridden a total of 53 winners in only 12 months of race riding in Macau and is off the New Zealand in August to represent Macau in the Fifth Series of The Asian Young Guns Challenge to be hosted by the Waikato Jockey Club at Hamilton.
“I am very happy the Jockey Club has given me the opportunity to go to New Zealand and represent Macau.” Perkins said.
“I will give it my best and in the future my ambition is to ride in other different countries and keep learning.”
The Young Guns Challenge set down for August 17 will be decided over three races on the day at the Te Rapa racetrack.
Last year’s Series was hosted by the Macau Jockey Club in August with Hong Kong apprentice Alvin Ng taking top honors.
* TRAINER Kim Cheong has a real progressive sand performer in the Irish import Vigorous Momentum who has won his last three races in terrific fashion on the all weather surface.
The four year old son of Elusive City (USA) made short work of his opposition to race away with the 30 to 60 rated contest over 1600 metres on Friday night.
With regular rider Benny Woodworth in the saddle Vigorous Momentum was bet down late like there was no tomorrow to start at $1.9, and gave his supporters no cause for concern after sitting back off a hot speed to bolt away and beat another Irish import in Blitzing Eyesight (Stanley Chin), with Turquoise Song (Fausto Durso) in third.
Vigorous Momentum raced five times in Ireland with his best effort a third place at Limerick over 1450 metres turf, and whilst he has placed four times on the turf in Macau it’s abundantly clear that the sand and a bit of distance is his forte with two wins at 1600 and one at 1700 on the all weather.
The gelding is not just winning; he is destroying them with his combined winning margins in the three events a total of 16 lengths.
Apprentice Frankie Choi and Fausto Durso shared riding honors for the night with a double each with both riders kicking home winners for the” Sunshine “owner Cheng Ting Kong whose Sun International Group recently purchased the iconic Eliza Park Stud in Victoria.
Cheng’s three winners on Friday were Sunshine Winner (Frankie Choi) 0 to 50 1050m sand, Sunshine Tacker (Fausto Durso) 30 to 50 1100m turf and Sunshine Kingdom (Fausto Durso) 50 to 70 1500m turf.
Frankie Choi’s double came by way of the Steven Choi trained Luen Yat Success who showed good speed and stamina to cross from gate 11 and kept right on with the job to win the 30 top 50 1100m turf.
