Esteem Power makes no mistake

Michael Lee
Sunday, January 03, 2010

Hot favourite Esteem Power did not let his backers down with a powerful winning display in Race 2 on Sunday.

Punted down to solid $9 favouritism, the Towkay three-year-old overcame greenness to put the $65,000 Restricted Maiden-2 (2&3YO) race over 1400m beyond doubt at the 200m.

Ridden by Vlad Duric, Esteem Power, who had shown early signs of ability when a flying second at debut last November, began smartly from his outermost alley to settle in a one-out one-back position behind Cosmic Vanguard (Ng Kok Keong).

Esteem Power (Vlad Duric) gets his name on the scoresheet early in his Kranji career.

With his head turned inwards, Esteem Power did not quite look the part of a seasoned racehorse, but once he was scrubbed up by Duric at the 300m, he accelerated very well to score a two-length win over Sweet Dream (Oscar Chavez), who though ducking in sharply at the 150m, ran on strongly for second, with Cosmic Vanguard plugging on well for third on the rails. The winning time was 1min 23.39secs.

Winning trainer Steven Burridge said the win was expected in such a moderate line-up but more improvement should come out from that run.

“He’s still a big baby and knows nothing about racing,” said Burridge. “His work the other day was ordinary, but he was eating and was happy.

“He was also ridden upside down today. We wanted him to be back further but the race was run in such a way that he had no choice to go forward if he didn’t want to get caught three or four wide.

“It’s good he’s won early as he’s definitely got ability. He will surely improve further from that first win.”

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