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On what was a workmanlike day of Polytrack racing at Kranji on Sunday, the day was lit up by a sprinting performance out of the top drawer from the ultra-talented My Dreamliner for Young Keah Yong under the guidance of the in-form Wong Chin Chuen to claim the day’s top prize in the Class 3 handicap over 1000m.
A son of Dream Ahead, My Dreamliner was returning after a break of 128 days and was up seven points for an impressive win when last seen in action on July 26.
This victory also meant that his excellent first-up record was kept intact with four wins from four 'fresh' runs.
Jumping only satisfactorily from barrier seven, he, however, made up ground through the field very swiftly - more like Concorde than Dreamliner - to find himself in a beautiful position early.
At the 600m marker, the well-backed $11 favourite effortlessly coasted to the front and doing it all on his own terms. He was chased by the Shane Baertschiger-trained pair of Kiss Your Song (Matthew Kellady) and Flak Jacket (Daniel Moor), with recent Class 4 winner Al Green (Michael Rodd) and the Mark Walker-trained Man Of Mystery (Mohammad Nizar) all in pursuit of the four-year-old speedster.
Upon turning in and racing to the final 250m, Wong only had to keep him up to his work and not at any stage did My Dreamliner look like being caught. He went to the line to score by one length from Al Green in second with the nine-year-old Flax Jacket a very creditable third on his 72nd lifetime start.
The winner's time was 58.85 secs (half a second outside of the standard) for the 1000m on the Polytrack.
Young was recording a training double having earlier saddled $57 outsider Success Street (Shafrizal Saleh) to a first win in the $20,000 Maiden race over 1600m. The brace brought his 2019 haul up to 22 winners.
"He has come back as expected after the break," said Young.
"The plan was to lead, but since this horse is up in class, I told CC if someone were to go quicker, then we take a sit. But then again, he showed he's got more speed than the rest.
"Yes, he has good speed and he likes to race fresh. At this moment, he's definitely the fastest horse in my care.
"He did look like he found another wind when CC gave him that slap. But he's up in class, so we shall see how he pulls up."
It has been a good couple of days for the two-time Singapore champion apprentice jockey with five winners across the weekend.
"He is a very promising horse, but he can be a bit slow out of the gates sometimes," said Wong.
"But today, he did everything right and he jumped pretty sharp. I think that was because he just came back from a short spell and he's very fresh.
"He needs to be striding, but I felt that the track on the rails today wasn't as good, and a few has failed on the inside ground. So, I decided to sit outside the leader.
"From the top of the straight, I was just happy to sit beside the leader, but maybe as he was still very fresh, he kept on tacking from there.
"If I could sit off the leader, and wait a bit more to throw everything in, then he could have won more easily.
"At the last 50m, he was balanced and nice to the line."
Racing in the colours of Tang Weng Fei, My Dreamliner has now amassed earnings of over $140,000 from four wins in just six career starts in Singapore.
