Tuesday thrillers at KL trials

There were tight finishes and there were runaway winners.

In a nutshell, the trials which were run off at the Selangor Turf Club on the morning of July 28 had everything to whet the breakfast appetite.

So Cute took the opener by a short head.

In the second, Pacific Wave fought hard and got home by three parts of a length.

Then came Shajaah’s turn to show off and he romped in a 12-length winner.

Hardly had the dust settled when the fourth trial got underway and that was when an unnamed runner from Frank Maynard’s barn nosed out another unnamed runner trained by David Kok.

Spectators at trackside had not yet finished their morning coffee when they were treated to a galloping show from Nick Selvan’s Lucky Mega who put daylight between himself and the rest when winning by a massive 14 lengths on the sand.

There was indeed plenty to take home from the trials especially when one of the winners, Lucky Mega, has been entered for the 1,600m race for Classes 3 and 4 on Aug 2.

Just a three-year-old with eight starts in Malaysia, he already has a win and two third placings to show.

Here is how Lucky Mega did that demolition job on his trial rivals.

Ridden by Jackson Low Kang Cheng and jumping from the innermost gate, Lucky Mega was neatly into stride.

In the early part of the 1,000m journey on sand, Defoe, the mount of Lim Shung Uai kept him company. But Lucky Mega was in no mood for companionship and when they straightened for the run home, Lucky Mega shot clear.

As the finish line neared, Lucky Mega lengthened strides and eventually put an eternity between himself and Defoe who held off Astro Nascente (Ikram Jamaludin) by half a length.

Lucky Mega did the job in 1min 01.85sec which, on the sand, was par for the course.

The trial would have topped up the Irish-bred son of Coulsty sufficiently for a second win. With Selvan’s yard churning out winners with some regularity – they pulled off a treble at the just-concluded meeting – anything is possible.

As for the other runaway winner, Shajaah, his trial win was actually harder than it looked.

He was third in the early part of that gallop on grass and only made his move at the 700m mark when the early leaders, Team Work and Rich Merchant started to get the staggers.

When asked for his effort in the home straight, Shajaah responded and cruised home a 12-length winner.

Owned by the Al-Arabiya Stable, the Australian-bred, who turns three on Aug 1, arrived in Mahadi Taib’s yard on Sept 25 but he has yet to show up in a race.

However, he has not been idle. Including this most recent one, Mahadi has sent his charge to three other trials.

After finishing down the course in all of those, the July 28 hit-out saw Shajaah first past the post for the first time.

The son of Heroic Valour has been well schooled. It is now left to be seen if he can bring that trial form to the races.

Flip the coin over and the trials produced a likeable racer in So Cute.

From trainer Winson Cheng Han Yong’s yard, So Cute showed promise when winning in a time of 1min 0.25sec.

Ridden by Haikal Hanif, he had to fight every step of the way and it was only at the post that he put his head in front to get the verdict.

The Extreme Choice four-year-old has yet to show up at the races in Malaysia but racegoers in and around Melbourne knew him rather well.

Back then he was known as Nostringsattached and he had three wins from 10 starts on city tracks in Melbourne.

Two of those wins were over the 1,400m and the other was in a 1,200m contest.

So Cute is coming to hand. When Cheng sends him out for his Malaysian debut, it could well be a pretty sight.

brian@sph.com.sg