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Irish entire Invincible Ryker blew punters out of the water with a thrilling last-stride win in the $70,000 Penang Turf Club Trophy, a Kranji Stakes C race over 1000m on Friday.
Dropping back to short sprints after he put in an ordinary run on turf over seven furlongs a fortnight ago, the son of Invincible Spirit this time around came out tops in a closely-contested finish where four to five horses could still grab the top prize 50m out.
It actually looked like déjà vu as Wolf Warrior (Marc Lerner) came with a storming run in a bid to upstage favourite Nova Vocal (Noh Senari) like he did at their last encounter, but Invincible Ryker (Benny Woodworth) came ripping the script up at the eleventh hour.
Reeling off a sustained run to the line on the back of a smothered run in midfield, the Irish import just had that extra spark that gave him the wood on Wolf Warrior with a neck the winning margin.
Nova Vocal was again beaten, as he settled for third another head away. The Big Easy (Vlad Duric) was the first to be hailed the winner when he stormed to the front 300m out, but weakened a touch too early to finish fourth another neck away.
Raced by the Team Cheval and Yu Long Stable partnership, Invincible Ryker ($133) was padding up his local tally to three wins (all on Polytrack) from nine starts after landing in Singapore with a smart record of three wins (1000m to 1400m), all on the All-Weather at Dundalk in Ireland where he was prepared by Yu Long’s trainer Mick Halford.
That affinity for the Polytrack was one of the reasons trainer Daniel Meagher brought him back in trip 14 days later.
“Benny rode him fantastic, Benny is a good mate of mine,” said the Australian conditioner who was saddling Invincible Ryker as his only runner of the night.
“It’s also great for Yu Long and Eric Koh (of Team Cheval). They support me with good horses.
“This one was coming off a 1400m race after two weeks. He’s done nothing wrong and seems to thrive when he gets to those 1000m races.
“I spoke to (assistant-trainer) Danny Beasley and he told me to run that horse in that race. I agreed.”
The instructions to Woodworth were quite loose but the main idea was to let him find his rhythm and hopefully his burst of speed would take care of the rest.
“Dan told me not to be in a hurry to jump and be up close. Sit sixth or seventh, it doesn’t matter,” said the in-form Malaysian jockey.
“The most important was to let him settle in his own strides and he will have a last shot at them in the straight.”
With that third Kranji win, Invincible Ryker has now amassed around $130,000 in prizemoney for his connections.