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After bagging three wins on the trot last Saturday, last year’s champion trainer Tim Fitzsimmons brought up another four-timer on Saturday to keep the close fight for the title going.
The affable Australian conditioner, who now sits second on the premiership on 52 wins, booted home an early double with Ben Wade and Eruption in the $30,000 Class 5 (1100m) opening race and the $75,000 Restricted Maiden race (1400m) on Saturday.
Later in the day, Mister Dynamo ($14) and In All His Glory ($28) knocked in two more wins for Fitzsimmons in the $30,000 Class 5 race (1000m) and the $50,000 Class 4 race over the mile respectively.
Current leader Jason Ong, who was on a roll last month with 11 wins including one five-timer on October 21, fired blanks last week but hit back with two wins in My Boss ($11) and Super Convince ($31) on Saturday, thereby holding on to a narrow two-win lead on the trainer's log.
With seven more meetings to go in the season, Fitzsimmons does have a serious chance of clinching back-to-back trainer titles.
Before that, he was happy to see his apprentice jockey Azhar Rasid pull off a double on Ben Wade and In All His Glory after his last win on 30 July, but also pleased with the improvement that first-time winner Eruption has shown.
Unlike at his last start on 23 September where the fractious three-year-old son of Xtravagant reared up in the barriers, he sprung out of the gates this time for jockey Vlad Duric and quickly crossed heels to take up the bunny position.
Lucky Goal (Manoel Nunes) sat outside the $13 favourite in second while the pair of Supreme Liner (Ronnie Stewart) and Longevity (Krisna Thangamani) were next in line.
After Eruption led the field of 13 into the straight, Duric kept pushing the Buffalo Stable-owned gelding before drawing out the persuader at the 250m as Supreme Liner and Lucky Goal gave chase valiantly behind.
Rated to perfection by the four-time Singapore champion jockey, Eruption hung on by one length to beat Supreme Liner, who edged out Lucky Goal into third by a neck. The winning time was 1 min 23.08secs for the 1400m on the Short Course.
Fitzsimmons had Singapore Turf Club chief starter, John Pepe, to thank first and foremost for Eruption's first win.
"I want to thank John because this horse reared up at his last start. He got his head caught in the gates and missed the start by about five lengths," he said.
"John has done a lot of work with him since his last run, and he flew the gates today.
"The plan was to go forward and if somebody else wants to lead, we would have been happy to step aside but that was a good result.
"He had to do a bit of work to get across today, but Vlad got him to come underneath him and rated him beautifully.
"Perfect ride. I don't think there's many better in front than Vlad.
"We'll stick to 1400m for him (Eruption) and see what happens.
"It's good to get a winner for Buffalo Stable and Wattle Bloodstock too."
First-time partner Duric, who also won on Mister Dynamo, thought Eruption was still immature but won on raw ability.
"It's tricky because he's a bit of a problematic horse in the barriers and he's very childish," said the Australian hoop.
"But no fuss today when he jumped well. The plan was to be in third or fourth, but we were never going to get there.
"He was too good for them in the end."
Bought as a yearling for A$60,000 at the 2022 Magic Millions Gold Coast National Yearling Sale, Eruption's first win in three starts at Kranji has brought his earnings to over $50,000 for connections.
