Ananthen Kuppan gets morning boost

It is a fact that trainer Ananthen Kuppan does not have a stable of champions at his Sungai Besi spread.

Actually, for all his hard work, the 64-year-old has just one winner to show for the 2026 season – Ocean Jupiter, who won a 1,500m race on Feb 15.

Even now, five months into the season, his gallopers who have shown up at the trials have not done much to inspire confidence.

However, fast forward to the morning of May 12 and there he was, taking two of the four trials which were run off on the grass track at Sungai Besi.

It was that same Ocean Jupiter, so far his only highlight for the year, who carried the flag for the yard when he took out the third hit-out in style.

The Ocean Park five-year-old’s win must have rubbed off on stablemate Legacy Fortune, who contested the last trial for the same connections as Ocean Jupiter’s, the Legacy Power Racing Stable.

The Irish-bred seven-year-old was truly in the zone when he left his rivals stranded by a massive seven and a half lengths.

Legacy Fortune was the morning star even when the winners of the first two trials broke the minute mark.

Ridden by Ruzaini Supien, the son of Dragon Pulse cleared the gates well and sat in second spot until the top of the straight when he opened up like a good horse.

From then on, the rest of the runners simply drifted off into the morning mist and he went on to gap his rivals.

The four-time winner’s best showing this season came two starts back on March 29 when he almost caused a boilover under Ruzaini when second to Lightning Gal in a 1,400m race.

Earlier, in the third trial, Ocean Jupiter turned in a showing which earned him a “pass”.

Racing stewards ordered a test before his next start after he fluffed his lines at his last outing in a 1,400m race on April 25.

Ridden by Wong Kam Chong, Ocean Jupiter was slow out of the chute and stayed last for the entire trip.

Those sluggish ways were set aside on May 12. Ocean Jupiter jumped with the rest and was in no hurry to dictate things.

Instead, he chose to sit third with cover and only fashioned a run when the pack was 300m from home. Given rein by Ruzaini, he opened up to win by 2¼ lengths.

Ocean Jupiter picked up a fourth career win in a Class 5 race on Feb 15 but he has been unsuccessful in the three starts which followed.

It could be that he is finding that rise to Class 4 as being a bit out of his reach, but there is no argument as to his current form.

By almost going under a minute when winning his hit-out on May 12, he served notice that he could pick up some stakes money when he next goes to the races.

Earlier in the day, trainer Jason Ong made it a stable queue-up with two Pacific Stable-owned runners.

That was in Trial No. 2 and Pacific Pery (Bernardo Pinheiro) was all-conquering when beating his stablemate Pacific Warlord (Fikri Ismail) by 1¼ lengths in 59.92sec. They left third-placed Silent Storm (Haikal Hanif) six lengths adrift.

Yet to secure a first Malaysian win, the Santos four-year-old has, however, already won three races over the 1,200m, 1,300m and 1,400m in Victoria, Australia when racing as Super Trooper.

However, his best showings from five starts in Malaysia have been a second and two third placings.

He is getting there and will be worth watching at his next start.

Also breaking the minute mark was Emerald Lisi. One from trainer Johnny Lim Boon Thong’s pack, the Brazilian-bred seven-year-old by Agnes Gold won in a time of 59.81sec.

A two-time winner from 16 starts, Emerald Lisi should be close to a third win on his showing at the trials.

brian@sph.com.sg