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Truson ready for Kranji caper

Malaysian champion shows up at trials on Tuesday

Come Sunday, Singapore racegoers will get to see the Malaysian champion in action.

Truson's the name and he's as game as they come.

With a career-high rating of 126, the first race in his Singapore adventure will be the Raffles Cup and, as far as horseflesh's concerned, he's worth an MRT ride to Kranji.

The eight-year-old was at the trials on Tuesday morning and, boy, did he impress.

Ridden by Daniel Moor and jumping from the outermost gate in that 1,000m hit-out, Truson gave his jockey a sedan-chair ride.

Clearing the gates without any bother, he was soon in front - and firing.

The others gave chase. Most notably, Per Inpower and the very talented Sacred Croix. But Truson easily kept them all at bay.

Passing the 600m mark and the ol' boy was 11/2 lengths clear of the hard-ridden Per Inpower.

Into the straight and Truson seemed to know that his work was almost done.

Moor didn't need to move a muscle as Truson lengthened strides to lead by two, and then, three.

By then, the star from across the Causeway had shown enough and sheer momentum carried him to the finish line, 21/4 lengths ahead of the fast-finishing Baccarat, the mount of Alysha Collett, and Sacred Croix (R Zawari).

Truson, who is a son of Al Maher, clocked a decent 61.84sec for the sprint - which, incidentally, isn't his forte.

Formerly trained by Stephen Cook and later by Shane Edwards when in Malaysia, he is now with Cliff Brown.

In a Malaysian career which has seen him face the starter 61 times, Truson won 18 races. Eight of those were over the mile, which is the distance he has to cover in Sunday's $800,000 feature.

Rest assured, he will feel right at home at Kranji. And yes, no one has yet told him that he's getting long in the tooth.

Also from the trials, I will take note of Our Pinnacle.

The five-year-old ran second to Win Mak Mak in the last of four trials that morning and he looked a picture on pulling up.

Ridden by Collett, Our Pinnacle had just one behind him when the field made that first turn on the far side.

Indeed, at the 600m mark, when runaway leader Win Mak Mak had scooted away to what looked like a seven-length lead, Our Pinnacle must have been at least 10 lengths in arrears and travelling wide.

Two hundred metres out and Zawari could have done the crosswords on Win Mak Mak and they still would have won.

The battle was for second and Collett made sure she got there on Our Pinnacle, who came with big, bounding strides to take "silver". However, the winning margin was just two lengths.

The records will tell you that Our Pinnacle has won just once in 10 starts and that win came some 12 months ago.

By our reckoning, the son of Pins is back to his best form and it could be in your interest to have him on your shortlist. On what we saw at the trials, his second win should come sooner rather than later.

HORSE RACING