A daring mid-race move by Chad Schofield has paid dividends with emerging three-year-old Decalogue outstaying his rivals to land his second win in succession at Randwick.
The gelding found himself worse than midfield early after a moderate jump, and when the speed slackened, Schofield whipped around the outside and took his charge to the front.
Decalogue ($3.20 fav) had the stamina and class to sustain the effort, drawing away again on the line to score by 1-1/2 lengths over Simply Gold ($10) with Engine Of War ($15) another head away third.
“He’s got a big action, and he needs to build into his races, so the plan was to be on speed,” trainer Ciaron Maher’s assistant, Jo Gerard-Dubord said.
“When he was so far back it wasn’t ideal, but when the speed came out of the race, Chad made a nice smooth run at the right time and after that he kept grinding.
“He’s a horse we have always liked. He is very lightly framed and he’s furnishing and doing well in work. The more he races, the stronger he gets.”
Decalogue showed his quality to finish fourth in the Group 2 Tulloch Stakes (2000m) over the autumn and finally got his maiden out of the way when running out a 4-1/2 length winner at Newcastle earlier this month.
He was able to bring that form to town for Saturday’s Foundation Female Member Handicap (2000m) and Gerard-Dubord said they would see how he came through the win, but were keen to continue his campaign while he was in form.
“We just wanted to get a bit of confidence in him, and winning so well last start definitely helped him,” he said.
“He is still very unfurnished but it’s hard to stop when you’re on the way up, going well and still improving. It’s just that for three-year-olds at this time of year, there’s not a lot. We will see how he pulls up, but it was good to win today.”
