English trainer James Peters was grateful to the people who have rallied round his severely short-handed stable after Circuit Mission scored a resounding win in the $70,000 Class 3 race over 1400m on Saturday.
Peters revealed that his stable operations took a hit in recent weeks when six of his men became COVID-19 positive. Only Zairi Othman and Ansar were negative.
While his stable of 22 horses is not the biggest around Kranji, a reduced staff strength still throws a major spanner in the works, especially during morning trackwork when the pace is always frantic.
The chain reaction of having fewer hands on deck may ultimately lead to horses getting scratched if they don't attain the desired fitness level due to the cut back workload, but luckily, Zairi and Ansar have pulled double, even triple duty, and senior jockeys have also thrown in a helping hand, especially A'Isisuhairi Kasim, Circuit Mission 's winning jockey.
"We had six COVID-19 cases at the stable, only Zairi and Ansar were not down. I had a skeleton staff to work with," said Peters.
"Luckily both Zairi and Ansar have shown up to work every day without fail to keep the show on the road, and it was good to pay them with a winner today.
"I'd like to also thank Harry who's done a great job with this horse, but it's not only him who was there for us; Oscar (Chavez) and Troy (See) have also come round to help out.
"If not for them and my staff, I wouldn't have had any runners today, and for that, I'm very grateful to all of them."
And a second winner after Amore Amore on January 8. A winner of three-in-a-row (all recorded from the front) for Lee Freedman three seasons back, Circuit Mission was saluting for Peters for the first time after five starts.
After cutting across from a wide gate to sit outside Mini Force X (Iskandar Rosman) in fourth place, the High Chapparal seven-year-old then improved to a trailing spot in third as the field got strung out by the earnest pace set by leader Ironchamp (Krisna Thangamani) and red-hot favourite Red Ocean (Matthew Kellady).
Upon straightening, those who have plonked their hard-earned onto Red Ocean could already sense they were about to have the same wretched day as the majority of favourite backers all day.
Red Ocean was given the office, but Shane Baertschiger's Singapore Derby prospect just couldn't pass Ironchamp while A'Isisuhairi, who had still not opened his 2022 account before that race, had not flexed a muscle two lengths astern.
The moment he did, Circuit Mission ($63) shot past, opened up and kept finding inside the last furlong to eventually fall in by half-a-length from the fast-finishing outsider Tangible (Oscar Chavez) who just snatched the runner-up spot from Strong N Best (John Sundradas) by a nose.
The winning time was 1min 21.44secs for the 1400m on the Long Course.
"He's an older horse who's got his issues, mostly wear and tear," said Peters.
"When we got him from Lee, we had to nurse him through these issues, but he was still not getting over them. We then bit the bullet and gave him some time off.
"He got over them in the end. The owner was very patient and after we brought him back, we targeted this race when the programme came out.
"We knew there'd be a strong pace in the race, and there was no way we'd have him take on Ironchamp and Shane's horse (Red Ocean).
"My instructions are not complicated. I always tell jockeys to put the horse where he is comfortable.
"They went at a good gallop. I thought he might have sat too close at one stage, but it was still a good run in the end."
In 20 starts, Circuit Mission has now taken home in excess of $185,000 in stakes money for Hong Kong owner Ngo Tai Tak, who also raced 2018 Group 2 Chairman's Trophy winner Circuit Land with Freedman.
