After a “soft launch” with stable transfer Mr Clint, the Al Rashid Stable was right off the mark with one of their first original purchases to race with trainer Mark Walker on Sunday, US-bred filly Qaidoom.
Since its arrival in Singapore in 2019, the Kuwaiti-owned global outfit has been a regular visitor at the Kranji winner's circle with the likes of So Hi Class, Voluminous and Day Approach, to name a few, but exclusively in combination with reigning Singapore champion trainer Michael Clements so far.
It's only this year that Fahad Ibrahim Khalid Al-Rashid decided to diversify his ownership base towards another leading handler in three-time Singapore champion Walker, sending him five new horses, mostly unraced youngsters, including three US-breds.
In the interim, while waiting for those new imports (the other four are Walim, who later ran a creditable fourth in the other Open Maiden race over 1400m, Dinar, Maaroof and Bleu Marine, the only tried horse of the five) to reach race-fitness, the new partnership was able to get an early start with a ready-to-go horse in Singapore Gold Cup winner Mr Clint. The opportunity came up when trainer Lee Freedman put his horses up for sale when he decided to return to Australia in March, including the former Oscar Stable-owned son of Power.
Unfortunately, in three starts for Walker, Mr Clint has not been as successful as other high-profile Freedman transfers like Minister (Donna Logan) and Mr Malek (Steven Burridge), but that slight disappointment has been set aside when Qaidoom stepped up to the plate with an impressive all-the-way debut win in Sunday's $20,000 Open Maiden race over 1000m.
A grey roan filly by Noble Mission, a full brother to the great Frankel, Qaidoom (Hakim Kamaruddin), had already shown she could be a pace influence from her barrier trials, and duly replicated that pattern when she worked her way to the head of affairs in 100m.
Tesoro Pirata (Louis-Philippe Beuzelin) was the one who tried to keep her honest by sitting on her girth while the well-backed Lim's Denali (Danny Beasley) was stalking up right behind.
At the 300m, Qaidoom momentarily looked more doom than boom when Tesoro Pirata collared her, not forgetting Lim's Denali who had come across their heels to stake her claim as well.
But instead of buckling under pressure, Qaidoom actually found a couple more lengths, shaking off the challenges like a $10 favourite should do before clearing out to an easy 3 ¼-length win from Tesoro Pirata with Lim's Denali settling for third for her third placing in five starts another half-length away. The winning time for the 1000m race was 59.11 seconds.
"Mr Clint was our first runner for Al Rashid, but this is the first real horse they sent me," said Walker.
"Of the five they gave us, Qaidoom was the most precocious, but still, trial form can be a bit different to raceday.
"Hakim gave her a nice ride and when the second horse poured the pressure on, she showed a lot of heart."
The widening margin of the win might suggest she is not a speed dash one-trick pony, but Walker would rather not rush her at that stage of her career, even if the fixtures sometimes overrule those thoughts.
"The question mark is whether she can go further, but she needs to win more races first," said Walker.
"She was strong to the line for sure. Ideally, I still want to keep her to 1000m, though, but I'm not sure yet.
"There is a Novice 1200m on Poly coming up, but I wished it was a 1000m race. There is a Class 4 over 1000m, but I don't want her to race against older horses yet."
