Picture: Keagan de Melo earns his riding fee on Wonder Years (HKJC)
Keagan de Melo rode the Dougas Whyte-trained Irish Elzaam gelding Wonder Years to an astonishing victory over the July distance of 2200m at Happy Valley last night (Wednesday), despite starting odds of 15.00 on the Tote.
Wonder Years must be one of the laziest horses in Hong Kong and he is not only usually slowly away, but he has to be driven for most of the race.
He was tailed off as usual early and after being driven up to the join the others he began to drop the bit.
De Melo was forced to drive him on to the bit often and he had to give him reminders a number of times too.
Keagan drove the horse hard around the turn and came wide into the straight.
The big horse then mowed them down to win the class 4 handicap easily in the end.
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De Melo has now scored a single winner in his last three meetings and has a total of eight wins for the season, which is just three behind compatriots Lyle Hewitson and Luke Ferraris.
The latter pair are in joint seventh place on the log and De Melo is in joint eleventh place.
Douglas Whye has had 16 wins this season and is in joint second place on the trainers log, eleven winners behind leader Pierre Ng.
