3 minute read
Louis Corrales and Stanley Chin were the stars of Saturday's mixed turf and sand twilight meeting at Taipa.
Corrales booted home three winners and picked up two second placings from his five rides while Chin edged away from his opponents in the Macau trainers premiership when he picked up another two winners.
Corrales struck early winning the first the Class 6 over 1500m on the Victor Chan prepared Special Steel who did a fine job under his 133 pounds from gate 10.
Special Steel was able to cross and sit on the tail of pacemaker Prosperity Star (Kevin Leung) with Corrales simply biding his time. Once in the straight and balanced up Special Steel was able to gun down Impeccable Genius to win by a neck with Prosperity Star a head away in third.
Corrales teamed up with Stanley Chin to take out the C2 over 1500 metres with the well performed Royal Garden who sprouted wings over the last 200m to power home over the top of Golden Fans (Peter Ho) with Magnapegasus (Tshwaro Appie) in third.
Macau Derby second Royal Garden has been a nice buy for owners Tang Chung Wai and Fung Pak Keung with Saturday's victory taking his Macau record to four wins and six placings and close to $HK1.7 million prize money.
Royal Garden was formerly raced in New Zealand under the handle of Battle Tank where he won a 3YO maiden at Wanganui over 1360 metres when prepared by Opaki trainer Jim Wallace.
Stanley Chin rounded out his day when his promising 3YO King Of Glamour was given a lovely ride by stable apprentice Eric Cheung to win the C4 over 1050 metres.
Corrales completed his afternoon with a last stride win on the Alan Tam-trained Acing Pro in the C4 over 1510 metres.
Acing Pro, a son of Helmet, overcame a tough run to dive late and nail One From Many (Oscar Chavez) with Fully Realized (Stephane Ladjadj) close up in third.
A four time champion jockey in Macau, Saturday's treble took Corrales to 41 wins for the season, 13 wins in arrears of Ruan Maia who looks to have sealed his second championship.
Stanley Chin's double stretched his lead to nine wins over Sio Cheong in the trainer's race.
Chin is on 40 victories with just 16 race days left to claim his first title. Only three wins separate the next four trainers with Sio Cheong in second on 31, Alan Tam next on 30, Tony Fung on 29 and Danny Wong on 28.
Another nice winner was the KH Leong prepared Fortune Treasure under Oscar Chavez in the Class 2 & 3 over 1200m.
The former Victorian galloper who raced there as Smoke Signal made it win number three in Macau with two placings from his 11 starts.
He only managed one win in Australia under trainer Mick Price at Sale.
