Promising stayer Authoritarian led from start to finish to record an impressive victory in the 2015 VRC St Leger at Flemington this afternoon.

Authoritarian slogged his way through the wet to win the 2015 VRC St Leger at Flemington this afternoon. Photo by: Adrienne Bicknell

Authoritarian led from start to finish when he scored his maiden race win over 2424 metres at Geelong on April 8 and jockey Daniel Moor elected to attempt to replicate a similar performance in the VRC St Leger.

The Authorized gelding looked as though he would be a sitting duck at the 400 metre mark, but the three-year-old kept working away from his rivals in the final stages of the race and held on bravely to score a black type win.

Co-trainer Lee Freedman admitted that he thought Authoritarian may be a fairly average, but the hall-of-fame trainer said that the gelding was a completely different horse when he got on a soft track and was stepped up in trip.

“I thought this horse was perfectly placed today,” Freedman said.

“He was going to eat up every yard of the 2800 and the soft ground was just perfect for him.

“I said that I didn’t particularly want to lead, but he was pricking his ears and looking around, so I thought that he was having an easy run.

“He was always going to be hard to run down.

“We thought that he was a bit average early, but when we got him on the track for the first time he ran really well over 1400 and we knew he loved it.

“I was just barracking for the rain.

“I wouldn’t like to be hanging by my leg since the last one and it has been a bit of a hard luck race for me.

“I won it many, many years ago and I had about four or five seconds in it.”

Moor has ridden Authoritarian in all four of his race starts before the St Leger and Freedman said that he was delighted that the talented hoop, that will head to Mauritius tomorrow to begin a three month riding stint, had been able to record a stakes victory for the stable.

“It is really great for Daniel.

“He has done a lot of work for our stable and the inclination might have been to drop him off and put somebody else on, but he knows the horse and nobody could have ridden him better.”

Robbie Laing-trained Cuban Fighter hit the line to finish second, but he never looked like catching Authoritarian in the final stages of the race.

2015 VRC St Leger Results