Eric Saint-Martin has ridden three winners for David Hall recently but the Frenchman regards a 'personal favour' asked by the Australian trainer to have been a far greater compliment.
Saint-Martin landed Bold Win ($53) in the ninth event, the gelding's first victory at the 12th time of asking, and continued the emerging association he has forged with Hall since the departure of Robbie Fradd for Singapore.
'On Thursday, David came up and asked me if I would mind doing him a favour, to gallop a horse for him down the riverside,' Saint-Martin recalled. 'I said, 'Sure, my pleasure', but got such a shock when I realised it was his Group One horse, Absolute Champion. I was so pleased, I thought that was a wonderful compliment to give me.'
Saint-Martin gave a positive review to the Hong Kong Sprint hero, who is also a last-start winner of the Chairman's Sprint Prize at Group One level. 'He worked very nicely,' Saint-Martin reported. 'At one stage, when I moved on him, he seemed to exhale quite hard so I sat quietly, waited until he was balanced, then let him run along his final 400 metres. He opened up beautifully, a really nice piece of work. He stretched out well and felt very good indeed - like a top horse.'
Danny Nikolic 'embarrassed' himself by winning the opening race on General Danske on the all-weather track by the widening margin of 61/2 lengths.
'I was a bit embarrassed because I would never normally do that, but this one caught me a bit by surprise,' Nikolic explained.