A host of niggling injuries have prevented Invader from gracing the turf on a more regular basis but the four-year-old showed his potential with an all the way victory in the $65,000 Initiation -1 Stakes over 1200m on Sunday.

Trainer Steven Burridge said the gelding had been a test of his patience and training skill in getting the gelding to the racetrack.

“He’s had a lot of soft tissue problems that have taken a lot of sorting out,” said Burridge. “Hopefully we are now just starting to get on top of them.

Ridden by Danny Beasley, Invader scored a comfortable one-and-a-quarter length victory over Carys Road (Robbie Fradd) with Marco Kid (Saimee Jumaat) two-and-a-quarter lengths away third.

Invader made his debut in Kuala Lumpur back in June before heading back to Burridge’s stable.

“He’s an O’Reilly and some of them don’t take a lot of work,” said Burridge. I had this bloke before he went up to Malaysia.

“I actually sent him up for a spell to get him over his problems.

“I thought today he had a good chance as he ran second on a slow track at his first start in Kuala Lumpur.

“He’s a horse that has a lot of natural ability. If I can get him 100% right, then I think there is a good race in him.”

Despite being a little slow to begin, Beasley quickly had Invader back up on the speed challenging for the lead on settling down.

Beasley rated the gelding well in front before kicking with 300m to run, but in turn he let Carys Road out from the pocket. He looked a chance of running the winner down with 200m to run.

But Invader responded strongly to Beasley’s urging to comfortably hold the runner-up to the line.

Invader is a four-year-old New Zealand-bred gelding by O’Reilly from the St Hilarion mare Gilded Saint and arrived in Singapore late last year.