NEWS PREVIEW

Lucky Jinsha takes aim at Merlion Trophy after all-the-way win

Hot favourite Lucky Jinsha made all in the $85,000 Class 2 race (1100m), but not without giving pundits some heart-stopping moments in the last 50m.

The five-year-old son of Shooting To Win returned from a five-months layoff to score first-up in a Class 1 race over the same trip and surface on September and with a commanding seven-length win in a barrier trial on October punters tipped him as the $8 favourite in the field of 11 on Saturday.

Upon jumping, leading jockey Manoel Nunes bustled up Lucky Jinsha  up to secure the lead from the speedy Nepean (Zyrul Nor Azman) and Surpass Natural (Jerlyn Seow).

The Tim Fitzsimmons-trained gelding looked to have kicked clear after he turned for home, but the swoopers were in hot pursuit.

Sky Eye (Shafrizal Saleh) motored home quickly on the rails and Surpass Natural kept pursuing strongly under his three-kilos claimer, while Lucky Jinsha looked like he shortened his strides at the 100m.

Nunes would not spare him the reminders and the pair managed to stave off Surpass Natural by half-a-length at the post. Sacred Gift (Wong Chin Chuen) stormed home from outside to finish a neck behind in third, denying Sky Eye of a podium finish by a head.

The winning time was 1min 4.26secs for the 5 1⁄2 f on the Polytrack.

With that seventh win on the all-weather surface, the Lucky Unicorn-owned gelding has taken his records to eight wins and one seconds in 17 starts, amassing close to $270,000 in prizemoney for connections.

Though Lucky Jinsha won once in a Class 3 race on the turf in March this year, Fitzsimmons knew the bay gelding is a great Polytrack horse given his handy records, hence a target like the Group 3 Merlion Trophy (1200m) is the best chance for him to prove himself on the Group level.

"The Merlion Trophy next February (4th) is his target," said the Australian conditioner.

"It was not necessary to lead but we planned to get him into a nice rhythm this time.

"He may have gotten to the front a bit too quick and stopped a bit at the end but it's nice to see him get the win again.

"The season is coming to an end (last meeting of the year is on November but given his feet issues, I don't think I want to back him up in two weeks' time.

"Hopefully there's another sprint race in early January that we can run him We'll take a look at the programme then and take things one step at a time."

Besides Lucky Jinsha, Fitzsimmons also took home two other winners, The Star  ($30) and Dream Alliance  ($10) in the $30,000 Class 5 race over 6 f and $50,000 Class 4 race over 7 f respectively.

The treble puts him on top of the trainers' premiership with 59 wins, while fellow trainer Donna Logan hit back with one winner, the Group 1 Singapore Gold Cup-bound Minister in the $85,000 Class 2 race (1600m) three races later, to take her total number of wins to 57.

Nunes, who has partnered Lucky Jinsha five times to four wins, deflected the win to the trainer.

"Tim didn't really tie me down with any instructions, but we know this horse runs very good sectionals," said the leading Brazilian hoop.

"He just jumps and runs. This horse rose from Class 5 to Class 1 and he's still doing a good job, so credit to Tim and his stable staff.

"Maybe he needs a bit further. I had to let him go a bit on the 5 1⁄2 f, but I could probably ride him a bit more conservative on the 6 f, but he's done a great job after all.

"He's versatile. He's won on both the grass and the Poly(track), but from the way he won, it looks like he's a really great Polytrack horse, though I have no doubt he can run on both (surfaces)."

After bagging two wins for Fitzsimmons, Nunes capped his day off with a hat-trick of wins after the Jason Lim-trained Super Salute ($13) scored back-to-back wins in the $50,000 Class 4 race (1200m) in the Lucky Last.

With three more meetings to go and a 30-win lead over his second-placed rival Wong Chin Chuen (42 wins) on the jockeys' log, Nunes is well on his way to claim his fourth Singapore champion jockey title.


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