Leading trainer John Size said his boom three-year-old Mr Stunning may not race again this season after scraping home by just enough to swear by in taking his record to three wins from four starts yesterday.

A defeat last start at odds-on didn’t deter punters, who sent the son of Exceed And Excel out at a short quote again and sweated through a three-wide trip and some nervous moments in the final 100m before they collected.

Flying Moochi had gone to the lead and bowled along as he liked under 10-pound claimer Kei Chiong Ka-kei and proved a match when the serious work happened late in the piece.

“I wasn’t too concerned, he did what he had to, which is win the race, and I thought he was pretty brave actually,” said Size after the short head win. “The second horse is a last start winner, Mr Stunning is at the top of Class Three carrying a good weight as a three-year-old at his fourth start, so he’s got there quite quickly in my view and I’m quite forgiving. It isn’t unexpected that things become more difficult at that stage.”

Size said his inclination was not to run Mr Stunning (Joao Moreira) again this season but he was open minded and would let the horse decide that.

“I’ll see how he is – I think it highly unlikely we’ll run him again this season but if he’s just too well then that could change,” he said.

Moreira, having his first touch of Mr Stunning, said he had originally planned to lead but Size had dissuaded him from that path.

“John is very good at predicting what happens in races and he just said to me, ‘No, we don’t want to lead because the horse might get too keen’,” Moreira said. “He preferred me to wait and as soon as we jumped, I felt my hands were full and agreed bustling him would have worked against him. I didn’t get as much cover as I would have liked and had trouble holding off the second horse later in the race but Mr Stunning is a lovely animal. He’s going to be winning more races.”