Four year-old Star Witness gelding Nervous Witness made a huge impression winning on debut at Sha Tin last month and he made it two wins in as many starts when scoring just as easily at the same venue in Friday.
Trained by David Hayes and ridden by Zac Purton, Nervous Witness dashed through the 1000m Class Three sprint to win by nearly four lengths in 55.24 seconds, which was half a second quicker than his previous win.
Nervous Witness again stamped himself as a rare talent for Hayes, Purton and the da Silva family, who also raced superstar sprinter Silent Witness.
“He (Zac) said he’s a Group 1 horse, he said he got put under a lot of pressure from Joao Moreira, he said he just served it to him,” Hayes said.
“You’d prefer him not to have that pressure but it’s nice to see how he responded. He responded like a proper horse.
“We’re very lucky to have a lovely young team of horses (all Aussie bred) so it makes it easier to get up in the morning. They’re’ important horses all of them, we’ve got an excitement machine (Nervous Witness), a very impressive winner in the second (Lord Thunder, by night of Thunder (IRE)) and Master Montaro (by Toronado (IRE) won with some authority, like he’s going places.
“There’s a lot to look forward to out of the meeting.”
“It was very good. Predictably, as I thought pre-race, Moreira would try and torch him in the first half of the race – which he did, he really went out hard and tried to make it hard for both of us, really,” Purton said.
“My bloke, to his credit, it was only his second start in a race, he had to absorb all of that and he actually got stronger as the race went on. It was a really good performance. They just don’t do what he just did – it was special.
“He got it put to him today and he had to find and he didn’t just find, he put them away.”
A $110,000 Inglis Classic purchase from the Southern Cross Breeders draft, Nervous Witness is the second winner from Hadiklaim, a metro winner by War Pass (USA) that goes back to a US Black Type family.
Bred by Byerley Trading, Nervous Witness continues a great run of recent success for Star Witness, who is already the sire this season of Group II ATC Silver Shadow Stakes winner Swift Witness.
Star Witness stands at Widden Stud Victoria this spring at a fee of $16,500.
