Bruce Almighty’s appetite for racing hasn’t diminished despite being under orders at least once a month since December.

The Playing God gelding is rarely out of the money and had been knocking on the door with three placings in a row before breaking through in the TABtouch Westspeed Plate (1400m) at Ascot on Saturday.

Bruce Almighty tracked front-runner Zephyr Queen (Universal Ruler) and then took advantage of a rails run to go clear by three-quarters of a length. His only other win was an Ascot maiden in February for a syndicate managed by Oz Racing.

“He’s not a big horse so we had been booking claiming apprentices,” trainer Neville Parnham said. “But he keeps laying-in and really needs a senior rider. Chris (Parnham) has been in blistering form and he capitalized when the gap appeared in the straight.”

Parnham snr prepared Playing God before the big brown bull retired to Mungrup Stud. He’s also the most successful trainer of Playing God’s stock with 9 individual winners of 16 races topped by Kay Cee (G1 Kingston Town Classic).

Bruce Almighty is the penultimate foal of G3 SA Sires’ Produce Stakes winner Isanami (Tayasu Tsuyoshi). Mungrup Stud retained her Bunbury winner Isan Express (Danehill Express) and she was covered by A Lot (USA) last year.

Playing God (Blackfriars) is a Top 10 third-season sire in Australia with earnings of $2.34 million so far in 2019-20. He will stand for a $16,500 service fee at Mungrup Stud this year alongside I’m All The Talk ($7,700), Oratorio ($7,700) and A Lot ($5,500). All fees (inc GST).

PLAYING GOD