When Ear­ly Bird made all the run­ning and re­pelled the late chal­lenge of Nu­clear Pow­er in the Stew­ards Cup over 1,200 me­tres on the main track at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma, many thought it to be a fluke. How­ev­er, the three-year-old gave lo­cal rac­ing a ma­jor boost when he land­ed the 2019 Stew­ards Cup ti­tle on Novemver 30.

One month lat­er, on New Year's Day, train­er John O'Brien pro­duced the Hugh Leong Poi owned win­ner Ear­ly Bird, to win the first Grad­ed Event for the 2020 rac­ing sea­son - The Na­tion­al Flour Mills - Sian's Gold Sprint over 1,100 me­tres on the turf track.

On Wednes­day, Ear­ly Bird made all the run­ning to win the Pres­ti­gious Grade One sprint, from sta­ble­mate Tri­ni Avi­a­tor and the Glenn Mendez trained Spoke In Yuh Wheel.

Pun­ters could not be fooled and they in­stalled the lo­cal­ly bred horse as the 6-5 favourite to lift the $78,900 first prize cheque.

Ear­ly Bird and Bri­an Boodram­s­ing flew out of the gates and though pressed go­ing up the back-straight by Kha­lessi and Spoke In Yuh Wheel, he was nev­er go­ing to be head­ed.

Cham­pi­on jock­ey Bri­an Boodram­s­ing stat­ed af­ter the vic­to­ry, "He is a good horse, he has won on the dirt and now he showed his class with a su­perb win on the turf. One thing is cer­tain he knows where the fin­ish line is. He ran his heart out and though they looked like they are get­ting to him, he pulled more."

Cham­pi­on train­er O'Brien was hap­py with the vic­to­ry. He said, "This is good for rac­ing. He has shown that he is a qual­i­ty horse, he has tak­en the weight and beat­en the best hors­es in the coun­try. He has im­proved and maybe we should look to take him to Bar­ba­dos for a crack at one of the sprint events.

Ear­ly Bird's groom Bil­ly Joseph was the hap­pi­est man at San­ta Rosa Park and as he jour­neyed to meet his cham­pi­on he said, "This is a cham­pi­on, he won on the dirt and he has now won on the turf. He is a cham­pi­on. They thought he would not be able to take up the weight and win and my guy showed them, how god he was. That is a cham­pi­on."

R7: NA­TION­AL FLOUR MILLS SIAN'S GOLD SPRINT (GR.III) 1100M $131,500

1*(8)*Ear­ly Bird*B Boodram­s­ing*57*

2*(1)*Tri­ni Avi­a­tor*C Ro­jas*54*

3*(7)*Spoke In Yuh Wheel*R Jadoo*54*

4*(4)*Tiz A Vibe*S Bal­roop*51*

TIME: DIS­TANCES: 1/2, 1/2, 1 3/4.

$1PARI: (8) $2.40; $2.30; (1) $2.45

EX­AC­TA: $14.80

TRI­FEC­TA: $67.30

SU­PER­FEC­TA: $415.70

WIN­NER: 4 y.o DK B geld­ing - Gold Mar­ket/Ros­alin­da (Awe­some Again)

OWN­ER: Hugh Leong Poi TRAIN­ER: J O'Brien

BREED­ER: Hugh Leong Poi

AL­SO RAN: 5. Stock­yard R Ali 57; 6. Pause­fora­coors R iH­er­nan­dez 54; 7. Khaleesi K San­to 50.

NON-RUN­NERS: Awe­some April, Whis­per Light