Former Horse of the Year Mufhasa outran a star-studded field with an amazing time on a slow track to win Saturday's $NZ1 million Telegraph Handicap at Trentham.The six-year-old gelding made a sizzling run to record his fourth Group One win, and his Auckland trainer Stephen McKee put the performance partly down to Mufhasa being in the right place at the right time.Rider Samantha Spratt brought Mufhasa home in 1:07.05 in the 1200m feature to beat highly-fancied Australian raider First Command by 1
Former Horse of the Year Mufhasa outran a star-studded field with an amazing time on a slow track to win Saturday's $NZ1 million Telegraph Handicap at Trentham.
The six-year-old gelding made a sizzling run to record his fourth Group One win, and his Auckland trainer Stephen McKee put the performance partly down to Mufhasa being in the right place at the right time.
Rider Samantha Spratt brought Mufhasa home in 1:07.05 in the 1200m feature to beat highly-fancied Australian raider First Command by 1-1/4 lengths with Coup Align a head away third.
The million-dollar win, with Mufhasa sprinting wide around First Command and Coup Align in the straight, tipped the gelding's stakes earnings over the $NZ2 million mark.
McKee said Spratt had the horse well placed at the right time.
"We were in the right part of the track," he said.
Spratt said the win was "awesome".
"The moment he got out on the good (part of the) track, he really went," she said.
Mufhasa ran fifth in the Railway Handicap in 2009 before winning the Telegraph Handicap and the Group One Waikato Sprint (1400m) at Te Rapa at his next two starts, and last year again ran in all three races, finishing ninth, eighth and third respectively.
Another Australian raider, the Gai Waterhouse-trained Swift Alliance, started favourite on Saturday but could only manage 10th.