On a day which saw a number of horses win from the front, or those tracking the lead, it should have been obvious by race eight that Time Warp was in the Cup with a huge chance. Going out as a $4.00, many punters had cottoned onto the pattern of the day.

Yet a front running ride has to be well executed, not too fast so as to exhaust your mount and not too slow so that you encourage others to make a mid-race move. Zac Purton pulled this off pefectly. Asked if he’d seen another horse in the run, he commented “A couple behind the gates and then pulling up but I don’t know where they were in between.” The win gave Purton a clean sweep of the four races on International day.

A winner of five consecutive races, including a pair of Listed stakes, when trained in England by Sir Mark Prescot, Time Warp was winning his first stakes race in 14 starts in Hong Kong and he chose the right stage to do it. He has been progressing along nicely of late however and a break through win at this level was no boil over.

“I couldn’t see much speed on paper before the race so, unless anyone did anything differently, I thought I might be able to get my way in front,” said Purton. “I had a very easy time and that was key to the result. Tony has a great deal of confidence in his horse and he rang me this morning specifically to talk about this one so I thought he must have been pretty keen on him.”

Beaten favourite Werther, just had too much ground to make up at the end. “There was no speed up front and you couldn’t be where he was unfortunately,” said trainer John Moore. “I wanted him to be ridden closer but, whatever happened, he just wasn’t there in the spot I wanted. It meant he had too much ground to make up and would have had to run an impossible sectional to win. He hasn’t disgraced and we can now look down the road to the Stewards’ Cup, Gold Cup and perhaps Dubai.”

Trainer of the winner Tony Cruz also has overseas aspirations for his charge. “I would love to go abroad with him. He is a very versatile type of horse: he can go on the soft; he can go on the firm; he can go on the dirt too. I am sure this horse can go places. He is a very sound horse and he is a healthy horse. I haven’t done his programme but I believe he can win elsewhere.”

On the race Cruz said, “I told Zac to stay cool, ride the way I want this horse to be ridden.  Zac did exactly what I wanted him to do. He just took him to the front and nobody was going to catch him. I said, ‘just wait for them to come, and when they push you, go. When they came, he just took off.”