The apt­ly named three-year-old colt Mak­ing Head­lines burst in­to the "Clas­sic Pic­ture" when he bolt­ed home by 12 3/4 lengths in the fea­ture Grade III - Roy­al Colours Clas­sic for na­tive bred three-year-olds over 1,350 me­tres at San­ta Rosa Park in Ari­ma.

The John O'Brien trained thor­ough­bred has been beat­en by Ear­ly Bird in both his starts as a ju­ve­nile but yes­ter­day showed that he has trained on as a three-year-old and won like a "Triple Crown" horse.

Pun­ters made Ear­ly Bird, which was part­nered by Ri­co Her­nan­dez, the even-mon­ey favourite. How­ev­er, the Ruthven Smith owned Mak­ing Head­lines was very well sup­port­ed at 7/5 in the bet­ting.

When the starter sent the 12-horse field on their way, Cloud Dancer was the first to show from new­com­er Leonar­do Prayer with Ear­ly Bird and Cool Cat track­ing along with Mon Cheri. The sec­ond favourite Mak­ing Head­lines was slow­ly away and was in the tenth po­si­tion, some 15 lengths off the lead­ers.

Go­ing down the back-stretch, Prayer took up the run­ning from Cloud Dancer with Ear­ly Bird still in touch as Mon Cheri made a move on the in­side to get clos­er as Cool Dancer stayed in the hunt as Mak­ing Head­lines be­gan to get clos­er to the lead­ers.

Com­ing to the cor­ner, Mon Cheri sneaked in­to the lead on the in­side of Prayer which trav­elled well for his first run in pub­lic as Ear­ly Bid and Cool Cat stayed in touch with Mak­ing Head­lines com­ing with a bold bid on the out­side of the field.

As the hors­es swung for home, Ker­ron Khelawan's mount Mak­ing Head­lines swept in­to the lead and that was the end on the event, as he strolled clear in style just as sire Head­line News did years ago.

The win­ning dis­tance clear­ly showed that he is a horse go­ing places as he reg­is­tered the time of 1:22.09 which was a full sec­ond faster than that which was record­ed by both Shes So Spec­tac­u­la and Re­gal In­ten­sion on Box­ing Day, last year.

Ear­ly Bird stayed on for sec­ond with Cool Cat giv­ing O'Brien a one-two-three in the fea­ture. This gave O'Brien his fifth win in the event in the past six years and a dou­ble this year, as he pro­vid­ed the win­ner in 2018, Princess Sophia.

O'Brien now has the top two three-year-olds in his sta­ble in Shes­So Spec­tac­u­la and Mak­ing Head­lines.

The high­ly re­gard­ed Glenn Mendez trained Spoke In Yuh Wheel dis­ap­point­ed in the Mod­i­fied Bench­mark Hand­i­cap for three-year-olds go­ing over a dis­tance of 1,200 me­tres. He was sent off as the odds-on favourite but could not match the speed of sta­ble­mate Sky­lar which made a win­ning one for ap­pren­tice Sven Bal­roop. Lead­ing La­dy showed that she is re­turn­ing to form with a cred­itable third. The win­ner's time was a good 1:11.62.

The day's rid­ing ho­n­ours fell to ap­pren­tice An­drew Poon who rode two win­ners in Li­on's Por­tion and Blaz­ing Gem. No train­er was able to sad­dle two win­ners.

Rac­ing con­tin­ues next week at the cen­tralised venue.