The Christmas break doesn’t seem to have slowed up First Chief’s winning momentum as evidenced by his third win in a row, and when stepped up in grade, on Sunday.
The Fastnet Rock seven-year-old, who raced as Cao Cao in Melbourne and Hong Kong, had been a letdown to connections since his arrival in 2020.
After trainers Jerome Tan and Young Keah Yong were unable to unlock his potential at his first six Kranji starts, trainer Jason Lim seemed to be hitting a brickwall as well when he took over at the beginning of last year.
Other than a few placings here and there, First Chief was still struggling to regain that form that saw him win two races in Melbourne, at Caulfield and Moonee Valley when prepared by Mick Price, albeit it was more in line with his poor Hong Kong form of no win in eight starts.
But a fortuitous change to frontrunning tactics at his 14th run for Lim on Singapore Gold Cup day on November 14 finally triggered a turnaround.
Ridden by Oscar Chavez in that Class 5 race over the Polytrack 1200m that day, First Chief rolled forward never to be caught. Chavez later reported that his mount landed in front by default with no-one else keen to fill that role.
The gelding racked up another win in the same fashion at his next start in an identical event before making it a three-in-a-row while rising in class in Sunday's $50,000 Class 4 Division 2 race, but again over the all-weather six furlongs.
Granted, the $23 shot nearly found one better, but as opposed to his two previous Singapore wins where he won rather easily, he couldn't afford to loaf around this time.
The main danger was Our Pinnacle who looked all poised to hand jockey Danny Beasley an early riding treble (after Lim's Zoom and Al Green) when he came upsides at the 200m, and even edged past, but First Chief dug down deep to get back in front by a nose.
To illustrate the superiority of the duelling pair, Basilisk (Matthew Kellady) grabbed third place another gap of four lengths away. The winning time was 1min 11.49secs for the 1200m on the Polytrack.
Favourite Prodigal (Shafrizal Saleh) did his best in fourth place another half-length away given the torrid trip he endured four wide without cover.
Lim couldn't quite put his finger on the factor that brought about the turning point, but was obviously pleased First Chief was not giving any signs of relapsing to his "erratic" ways.
"He was quite erratic in the way he raced, but sometime in November, we rolled him along and Oscar said that seemed to work for him," said the Singaporean handler.
"Today, we just told John to let him jump and bowl along. I thought he was beat at the 50m, but he showed he's got a good fighting spirit when he went again.
"When he came from Hong Kong, he had a very strong mindset, he was quite temperamental, but with the confidence on his side now, I think he channels it in a positive way through his will to win."
In 22 starts, First Chief has now chalked up three wins, three seconds and two wins for prizemoney that has just tipped over the $100,000 mark for the Trips D Stable.
