Century in Tangerine

Joao Moreira, Singapore's champion jockey, has hit his magic century of wins for the fourth consecutive season - and done so in Te Akau tangerine.

The Singapore Turf Club reported on the milestone for Moreira aboard the Te Akau Singapore trained Lightning Mac - a great effort by trainer Mark Walker with the rising 9YO:

After coming within a whisker of reaching the century in the previous race, champion jockey Joao Moreira finally hit a target which had become increasingly elusive the whole of Friday night, in the penultimate race thanks to $14 favourite Lightning Mac.

Missing out aboard favourite Cavallo by only a short head in Race 7, Moreira was left with only two bullets for the night, Lightning Mac in Race 8 and Dark Pulse in the last race, and the Brazilian supremo duly made it count first-up in the $35,000 Kranji Stakes D Division 1 race over 1000m on Polytrack.

The issue again looked hairy when the latecomers loomed large from all over the shop, but Lightning Mac, who was ridden very aggressively from the 700m mark, hit the front the first before staving off Griffin (Sam Subian) by a neck with Anavila (Mohd Airy) third another short head away. The winning time was 1min 0.01sec.

Lightning Mac holds off the chasing pack to give Joao Moreira his 100th winner for the 2013 season.

Relieved, Moreira could finally pop the champagne to toast his fourth 100th win milestone (did the same in 2010, 2011 and 2012) at Kranji.

“Definitely, it's been a bit frustrating all night as things have not gone as well as expected, but I never gave up,” said Moreira.

“I was always confident I would do it at some stage. It was just a matter of time.

“I could sense the other horses were finishing very strongly, but my confidence was always there. I just kept punching him out to the line and fortunately, the winning post arrived on time this time.

“I'm just so happy I've made it, whether it is a Class 4 or Class 5 horse or whatever. As you know, competition is getting tougher and tougher and to do it again is still a big achievement for me.”

Moreira is knocking in winners at more or less the same rate of knots as last year, if not just a little faster. Last year, Good Loouken was the one who helped him hit the century on June 17.

Prepared by trainer Mark Walker, Lightning Mac was recording his sixth success from 53 starts for stakes earnings that have now tipped over the $200,000 mark for the Remarkable Stable.