Former impressive West Australian three year-old Egomaniac made a winning debut in Hong Kong on Saturday when capturing the Class Two event over 1600 metres at Sha Tin under his new name of Leading Ahead.

Settling back in the field with cover, the Kenvain colt threaded his way into clear running on straightening and proved too good over the concluding stages in scoring by a neck.

Acclaimed as a rising star in Perth last spring, Leading Ahead, or Egomaniac as he was then known, traveled to Melbourne on the back of an impressive hat-trick of wins, but failed to quite measure up in running fourth in the Group Two MRC Norman Robinson Stakes and unplaced behind Efficient in the Group One VRC Victoria Derby.

 

Subsequently secured for Hong Kong by Sydney based kiwi bloodstock agent Anton Koolman (pictured) , he was transferred to the stable of Tony Cruz in January of this year.

“I looked at his tapes and I was quite impressed,” said Cruz.

"But when he went to Melbourne, I could see he was at the end of a preparation and had gone over the top. That's when I thought `I can improve this horse'.”

 

The intention is for Leading Ahead to be trained as a stayer with long-range plans including a tilt at the Hong Kong Derby in March of 2008.

While the Koolman family were delighted by the success of Leading Ahead who went to Hong Kong, they were equally pleased with one that came back from Hong Kong in Double Dip who scored at Kembla under the care of Oliver Koolman.

A five year-old Irish bred gelding by Selkirk, he’s a much-travelled steed having raced in Ireland as a juvenile, then in Hong Kong where he won one race before being sent to Australia where he’s been a consistent performer for the Koolman stable at Warwick Farm.

The weekend produced another meaningful result for the Koolmans when exciting Fred Kersley trained two year-old Roman Time added another big win to his record in Perth on Saturday when he took out the Group Three WATC Sires’ Produce Stakes, his dam having been purchased by Anton for a client last August.

Roman Time is the second foal of well-related mare True Roman, a nine year-old half-sister by Is It True (USA) to stakes-winners Grey Man and Tolo Harbour, her grand-dam being champion mare Maybe Mahal.

The mare was secured for a Shanghai based client while in foal to Xaar (GB) and has since produced a colt foal last spring and been covered by the young Danehill (USA) stallion Bearcat, a full brother to Golden Slipper winner and highly successful sire Catbird.

The resulting foal will be a three-quarter brother to Roman Time, who is by Danehill’s ill-fated sire son Danetime (IRE).