The in-form Vlad Duric rode his fourth metropolitan winner in eight days when the Peter Snowden-trained mare Forfeiture finished off strongly to score at Moonee Valley.
Back riding for only 15 days after spending the past three years in Singapore, Duric has ridden eight winners from 28 rides since resuming here.
Duric, 34, finished second to Joao Moreira in the 2010 Singapore jockeys’ premiership and was third last year.
The jockey, who landed his biggest win aboard Master O’Reilly in the 2007 Caulfield Cup, also rode the Snowden-trained Chasse to victory at Caulfield last Saturday and a double for Anthony Freedman at Sandown on Wednesday.
Duric let Commands four-year-old Forfeiture, sent out a drifting $4.20 favourite in the LF Sign Group Hcp (1200m), settle back fifth in the small field of six.
But she rounded up her rivals out wide on the track in the closing stages to score by three-quarters of a length from Appiel with Koonoomoo a head away third.
Forfeiture, who had done all of her previous racing in NSW, has won four of her seven starts and has not finished out of a place.
Duric said the mare jumped out of the gates on her wrong leg and took a while to get going.
“Luckily she has got a really good turn of foot and she was able to compensate for her mistakes and she was quite impressive on the line,” he said.
“She was on her wrong leg and wanted to lay in to the fence and I had to give her a decent yank to get her out and get her moving forward (from the 600m), and from there on she got it right.
“She’ll be better next time going this way.”
Duric said he has been letting trainers know he was back and was riding work at Flemington, including for Malua Racing, and for Freedman at Rye as well as riding in trials at Cranbourne in search of his next good horse.
