Second to MOON SHADOW in the Queen Elizabeth II Cup in August and third to MAYO’S MUSIC in the Raffles Cup last month, the five-year-old brown Australian gelding by Hideyoshi out of the Beau Sovereign mare Whisper To Me turned the tables on the duo in the Singapore Group 1 event.

The victory gave Melbourne Cup winning trainer Laurie Laxon his first Singapore Gold Cup success and a back-to-back triumph for jockey Mark Du Plessis who partnered ZIRNA last year.

It also marked another highly successful afternoon for Laxon who saddled three other winners to bring his tally to 94 for the season. With five more meetings before the season ends, he will well on his way to notch a first-ever century in Singapore racing.

RAUL, however, was not punters’ first pick of Laxon’s five runners in the handicap event. The kiwi trainer had SUPERIOR STAR and DREYFUSS as the joint topweight at 59kg but RAUL’s tremendous pull of 8kg over his stablemates was the telling factor in the end.

This aided by the fact Du Plessis had won the race last year and knew the track well during his previous long riding engagements in Singapore. The connections of RAUL made the right move in bringing the New Zealand based Zimbabwean back for the big race.

RAUL defeated MAYO’S MUSIC (7 b.a.g Procol Harum - Mayo Million by Royal Troubador) by a neck with MOON SHADOW (7 br/gr.a.h Bellotto - Tafah by Danzig) five lengths further back third.

New Zealand apprentice Cameron Lammas, also brought in specially for the Gold Cup, finished fourth on ROYALTY (5 b.nz.g Shinko King - Princess Gaius by Gaius).