Invincible Knight surges to victory

Trainer John Thompson gave Hugh Bowman a gee-up about the Sydney jockeys’ premiership race before the last at Rosehill and Invincible Knight put in the hard work to get to the line.

Bowman finished Saturday’s meeting with a double to leave Brenton Avdulla, who won the card opener on Gaulois, with only a 10-win lead after he produced another canny ride to boost Invincible Knight from second-last at the 400m.

The four-year-old gelding stormed home out wide to win the benchmark 78 handicap (1350m) by a long neck from Pick Me Up ($4.40).

Pakaya Prince ($5) was third, a long neck further back.

“I reminded Hughie he’s only 10 wins behind Brenton in the premiership. I thought that might gee him up a little bit there,” the Randwick-based Thompson said before crediting Invincible Knight.

“He was last, three wide and had to circle the whole field and have to come and do it with that big (61kg) weight.

“They set the race up nice for him. They ran along a bit but there’s a lot of credit in the win,” Thompson said.

“He didn’t have much luck last time in but he’s back going well.”

Thompson said Invincible Knight, who had never raced on a heavy 8 before, would continue to work through the grades with no specific race in mind.

Bowman was impressed after riding Invincible Knight for the first time.

“I was right back and he travelled well. At the 600 I needed a lot of luck to go through so I pulled him out and he really hit the line strongly,” he said.