17 March 2025, Kuala Lumpur 

Thirteen races took place on Sunday the 16th of March at the Selangor Turf Club with three feature races taking place including the first leg of the Triple Crown series, the Equine Sanctuary Tunku Gold Cup for RM300,000.

The first of the features took place in race 7, the UPBH Platinum Horse Club Trophy, contested over 1400m. Achilles Pegasus jumped as a short priced favourite and managed to shrug off the only danger, Pulse Bomb, despite coming together in the closing stages and an objection being laid against the winner. However, the objection was overruled and the result stood as the W Lim trained runner took home the RM62,000 race and was a good win for jockey A Azizi.

The Equine Sanctuary Tunku Gold Cup took place in race 9 on the program and racegoers would have noticed the important scratching of Golden Pegasus which allowed the emergency acceptor Noah Khan, from the S Siva stable, to gain a run which certainly opened the race up. Based on the  formline of a Supreme A Stakes race from three weeks ago , Noah Khan had to be considered a big runner as he had beaten all of Witnessimpact, Pacific Vampire, Super Salute and Good Fight from that race. There was plenty of pace on from the moment the gates opened as Pacific Vampire tried to set the track record with a blistering pace up front and pretty much set up any horse that had settled midfield to be able to finish off strongly. Al Da Silva had the perfect run in transit and was able to quicken turning for home to win by over a length. Antipodean ran another honest race in second and Platinum Emperor flew up from almost last turning for home to finish third. Stable companion Platinum Fort completed the quartet in fourth.

The last of the feature races took place in race 10 which was the Equine Sanctuary Trophy over 1200m and ended up as the Pacific Stable exacta as Pacific Victory took home the honours with stable companion from the J Ong stable, Pacific Master finishing runner up. This was PH Seow’s second winner for the day as she rode Pacific Beauty in the second for the same owner and trainer combination.

Overall it was a mixed day results wise with a few big upsets but it was a fantastic occasion for trainer S Siva with his first Tunku Gold Cup victory and certainly a day he won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Devon Pretorius