The Capital Shines in morning hit-out
Freedman's got The Capital to mount a serious challenge on Friday
The Lee Freedman camp, who on Sunday celebrated a victory with Kings Ryker before having their hopes crushed when Mr Spielberg got beaten by Elite Invincible, could be toasting a winner on Friday night.
And the horse to do it for them looks to be The Capital.
Just a one-time winner from 11 starts, the Irish-bred would have earned the thumbs up from his master when turning in a fine workout on the training track yesterday morning.
Ridden by Michael Rodd, The Capital ran the 600m in 37.1sec. At trackside, his name would have gone in to many notebooks.
Mr Capital deserves more than his record shows. Indeed, his last run on Jan 14 was impressive.
Ridden by Ryan Curatolo in a race over the 1,400m, The Capital jumped with the rest but was snagged back and was near last when they made that sweeping turn on the far side.
Easy to track in his light blue silks and the white star, he was peeled out to be widest of the pack when they straightened.
With Elite Invincible looking home and hosed, Curatolo asked his mount for an effort and it was a two-horse affair over the final 200m.
The very-talented Elite Invincible prevailed by a length but The Capital wasn't disgraced.
It was almost a year ago that The Capital opened his Kranji account. Then under the charge of Ricardo Le Grange, he won on debut beating Red Claw in a Class 4 sprint over the 1,200m.
The winning margin was almost two-and-a-half lengths and racegoers immediately took a fancy to him.
However, as they found out, wins were hard to come by and the best they got from him in his subsequent starts were three second-placed finishes - including that last-start effort.
But, it does look like The Capital is running into a rich vein of form and it's a winnable race on Friday which Freedman has picked out for his charge.
Also on Friday night, be sure to catch the other Class 3 event - the 1,200m sprint.
It is shaping up to be an excellent contest and yesterday morning we saw three of the contenders strut their stuff ahead of that assignment.
Impressive was the Shane Baertschiger pair of Be Bee and Longhu. They were kept together to run the 600m in 37.8sec.
John Powell was astride Be Bee while Matt Kellady took the reins on Longhu.
The other horse in that race to go fast was the James Peters-trained Mr Hanks who, under Barend Vorster, ran the 600m in a nice time of 37.7sec.
All three runners have winning credentials in what should be a fast-paced sprint.
Be Bee was a beaten favourite in his last start when third behind Golden Sword on Jan 12. That after putting together a nice win in a 1,200m dash on the Poly on Dec 1.
The three-year-old had won his first two Kranji races in mid-2017 and was gunning for an unbeaten hat-trick - only to fall short in late July.
The horse who took the honours in that race was Mr Hanks who narrowly beat Iffragal.
Incidentally, it was the last time we saw Mr Hanks at the races. But he returns on Friday all set and ready to take on all-comers.
Way back in June last year we saw what he could do when fresh. Don't bet on it not happening again.
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