This 'Captain' could soon be a major player
Le Grange has a good young 'un in two-time winner Captain Jamie
Exciting prospect CAPTAIN JAMIE lived up to the big wraps around him with yet another resounding win on Sunday.
Already an impressive maiden victor at his fourth start in an Initiation race over 1,400m on Aug 28, the son of Captain Sonador again made light work of his Novice rivals in the $75,000 Flying Fulton 2011 Stakes over 1,400m.
Granted, the small field of nine runners was already rendered even smaller when Got Goal and Soonbaby were withdrawn, but just looking at the way Ricardo Le Grange's ward made his own luck in front for Nooresh Juglall was still a win full of merit.
Captain Jamie had to jump from the widest barrier and kicked clear unopposed down the home stretch.
Ottawa (Olivier Placais) did jump out of the ground to give the $8 odds-on favourite something to worry about inside the last 150m, but if there was any chink in his armour, it was not James Peters' valiant son of Foxwedge who would find it.
Captain Jamie scored by just under two lengths from Ottawa with Marvel Hero (Craig Grylls) third.
Le Grange was obviously suitably impressed with the comfortable win, but was still taking it step by step with the Guy Shirtliff-owned galloper even if some lofty plans were starting to take shape on the horizon.
"Not many horses can do what he has done in such a short time," said Le Grange. "We knew there'd be a lot of pace to the race, and he ended up front quite easily.
"It was the Long Course and he was in front for a long time. It's not easy for a young horse like him."
As for the future, Le Grange said: "I don't want to get too ahead of myself, I will be looking at the Singapore Three-Year-Old Challenge next year, though the 1,200m race (Sprint) might be too sharp for him."
Juglall said the race was as good as in the bag the moment he found the steel and went on to enjoy an uncontested lead.
"I'm really pleased with this win as he's a horse I've always rated very highly," said the Mauritian hoop. "Everything went his way. We got in front and we were lucky nobody took us on and he did very nicely in the end."
With that second win and a second place at his third start in five outings, Captain Jamie has now collected in excess of $90,000 in stakes earnings.
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