Annabel Neasham has already won two Group 1 races this spring and rates Mo’Unga a live chance to give her a trifecta of top level victories in the Epsom Handicap.
The four-year-old launched his campaign with a Winx Stakes win over Verry Elleegant before stable star Zaaki continued his march towards the Cox Plate with an Underwood Stakes success last weekend.
Mo’unga returns to Sydney for Saturday’s Randwick assignment after finishing a narrow second in the Makybe Diva Stakes at Flemington and Neasham has him spot-on for the prestige mile.
“Mo’unga’s good. I’m very happy with him,” Neasham told Sky Thoroughbred Central from the Kensington meeting on Wednesday.
“It’s exciting having a horse with a good chance going into a race like the Epsom.”
Neasham made an early impact at the Kensington meeting with beautifully bred three-year-old Akhtar, who landed his first win at his third start in the Justify@Coolmore Maiden Plate (1400m).
By top stallion I Am Invincible out of 2007 Thousand Guineas winner Serious Speed, Akhtar was the rank outsider of the field at $20 but responded to a quiet ride from Jason Collett to down Dufresne ($8.50) in the final bounds and score by a half-head.
His victory caught the stable off guard but Neasham said they may have erred by riding him two aggressively in his previous defeats on the provincial circuit.
“I’m not going to lie, it was a little bit of a surprise how much improvement he’d taken,” Neasham said.
“We’ve probably just been riding him a bit wrong. I said to Jason (Collett), ‘just try to get a bit of cover with him today if you can’.
“It was a beautiful ride, he was very patient.
“He was still sitting on him halfway up the straight and I thought, we might be in with a chance here, and he was very good late.”
Akhtar gave Collett the first leg of an early double with the jockey adding another win two races later aboard the Bjorn Baker-trained Ladylovestogamble.