Macau’s Champion jockey Ruan Maia has been under siege in recent weeks with both Luis Corrales and Peter Ho applying the pressure to last season’s runaway winner of the Jockeys’ Championships. Both Corrales and Ho are former champion riders and both intent on reclaiming their crowns. However Maia has risen to the occasion booting home four winners in the last two racedays to once again give him a nice lead in his quest for a second Macau Jockeys Title.

The Brazilian horseman teamed up with Alan Tam to land the first of his winners on Friday nights sand card with the inform Superlative Choice in the Class 4 over 1510 metres. 

A son of Hidden Dragon (Aus) Superlative Choice who only goes to scale at 960 pounds but is certainly not short of heart, made it two wins from his last three starts this season both on the all weather surface.  The win continued the great run for the Alan Tam yard and kept him in equal first spot with last year’s Champion trainer Tony Fung on 14 wins each.

The blinkers first time was the key to Stanley Chins UK import Benevolent Friend producing a complete turnaround in form to score a narrow win in the Class 1 & 2 over 1350 metres.  Under strong riding from Ruan Maia Benevolent Friend got up in the nick of time to beat Mr. Singh (Shogo Nakano), with Éclair Sunshine (Oscar Chavez) running on well from his wide gate for third.

It was win number four for Benevolent Friend who has always been a consistent type on the all weather surface but had seemed to lose interest in racing in his past few runs.  The son Oasis Dream (GB) ripped through a sparkling piece of work on Tuesday morning with the blinkers, but punters were still a bit shy of him raceday resulting in him jumping at $95.00 for the win.

The victory by Benevolent Friend took Stanley Chin to 12 wins for the new season and has him breathing down the necks of Alan Tam and Tony Fung in the Trainers Premiership.

Australian import Hostwin Meraki was the sole winner on the night for Tony Fung when he scored an impressive debut win in the enclave under jockey Kevin Leung.

A winner of two races in Australia when under the care of Gary Moore from his 12 runs there, Hostwin Meraki was bet down late to $93.00 from a big double figure quote on opening.  In a very competitive race Hostwin Meraki was obliged to race three and four deep in the run from gate 11, however still managed to dig in deep when called upon and went home too well to beat Stadium (Shogo Nakano), with Happiness Rose (Eric Cheung) in third.

By the 2009 Oakleigh Plate winner in Swiss Ace (Aus), Hostwin Meraki looks to have a good future in the sprinting events in Macau especially since he has proved himself on both the turf in Australia and the now the sand in Macau.

The win was a welcome change of luck for young Kevin Leung who is in his first season as a fully fledged rider, and Friday’s night victory gave him win number three for the new season.