Seven-year-old gelding Al Haram provided Te Akau apprentice Joe Kamaruddin with the first win of his career on Saturday at Avondale. However, the Malaysian-born apprentice had to survive a protest lodged by runner up Windy Height and was suspended for 3 days for shifting in when Insufficiently clear of Magnanimous Man.

Winning two of four starts earlier in the season, Al Haram found the line solidly for third when resuming in a Rating 81 Highweight 1550m at Awapuni earlier in the month and appreciated stepping up in to 2100m on Saturday.

“He's a horse that I bought online and Karyn syndicated,” said Te Akau principal David Ellis CNZM. “He's by Sea the Stars, who was a world champion racehorse and doing a sensational job at stud in Europe, and has a great group of owners. Some of them have shares in a lot of horses with Te Akau.

“Al Haram showed promise from the outset when he started here last year. He's won three times now in New Zealand, and he's got the right attributes to win more. “I was thrilled for Joe (Kamaruddin) to get his first win on a Te Akau horse. He's a really good kid, always happy, and I think he's got a good future.

“Like so many apprentices, and I've given plenty of them their first win, they just need to get that winning feeling before they can go on with it.”

The victory of the handy stayer took Champion trainer elect Jamie Richards' domestic season tally to 101 wins. “Jamie leads the premiership and to have won 101 races this season is an incredible performance when you consider the time we had off in lockdown due to Covid-19,” Ellis said. “And, it took a while for things to pick up again after we turned all the horses out. It's been a terrific effort by Jamie and all the staff at the farm and the stables.”