Enigmatic galloper Jungle Ruler was described as a class act by his trainer Peter White after he staged a form reversal to win the fourth heat of the Winter Championship Series at Flemington.
The seven-year-old hadn’t shown much in four previous starts this time in and was beaten 14 lengths when last to Shadowfax over 1600 metres at Caulfield a fortnight ago.
With his regular rider Darren Gauci in the saddle, the grey scored over 1400 metres for the 13th time and landed his 18th win at his 90th career start.
Sent out at $11, Jungle Ruler took up his customary role in front and was never headed, scoring by three-quarters of a length from Mr Griswold ($12) with Melete ($17) 1-1/2 lengths away third.
The $1.85 favourite Epic Dragon was the disappointment of the race, finishing last of the seven runners after travelling in fourth position.
“He’s a class act. We’ll just keep racing him and it would be nice to achieve the goal of winning 20 races with him. He’s won 18 now, he just loves racing,” White said.
“After his last run which wasn’t any good, I spent the whole two weeks just trying to think of things that would help him, like looking after his legs.”
White said the horse had calmed down a lot as he got older.
“Today we started to think there was something wrong with him because he was so quiet and relaxed in the stalls,” he said.
“He’s got a new friend. A tiny, little miniature pony that lives in the box next to him at home and we bring him to the races and he just loves him.”
White said Jungle Ruler might not start in the Listed $200,000 Winter Championship Series Final (1600m) at Flemington on July 9 because of the extra 200 metres.
“He showed a bit more speed and keenness today,” Gauci said of Jungle Ruler.
“He did get to the front very easily and didn’t go slow, he went a nice tempo.
“I knew at the 200 metres he’d keep going and he was going to be hard to run down.”
AAP TURF
