KUALA LUMPUR:  Dec 4, 2022

VIOLET, who has been struggling to rediscover his form all season, raised his game a notch to upset AWESOME STORM in the Betmakers Cup at Sungei Besi here today.

The Australian gelding’s last success came in the corresponding weekend last year when he registered his 12th career win. 

This season, he finished third to AWESOME STORM in the Tunku Gold Cup (1200m) last April which was followed by a series of decent effort over varying distances up to 1600m.

However, with a bang-in-form rider Nuqman Faris Rozi in the saddle, VIOLET managed to run down the front-running AWESOME STORM, who was resuming after four-month break, in the shadow of the winning post to win by a neck in the Metro A set-weight event over 1250m today.

“He has been trying to lead in his races this year but failed to run on,” said Nuqman who won three races on VIOLET last year.

“So I kept him just off the pace early and save him for a run in the straight. He did not like it when I used the whip so I rode mostly hands and heels and he responded well.”

“Class got him home,” said winning trainer Lim Shung You who recently took over the gelding. “It was another superb ride from Nuqman.”

VIOLET was the second leg of a superb quadruple — the first in his career — by Nuqman who earlier won on SUPER HAPPY. The apprentice went on to bag the main event, the Piala Emas Sultan Selangor, on TELLER and wound up the day scoring on CH FORTUNE.

Nuqman landed three winners yesterday. The seven winners this weekend brought his tally to 43 for the season, moving him to sixth in the table. He rode 14 winners last year.

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