Ridden by Brazilian jockey Teixeira Ferreira Edson who has been in the country for only a few weeks, the son of Smart Missile was last early from barrier 15 in the capacity field of 16 runners.
After the jump Ferreira elected to trail the field early and moved to the inside rails. When the field bunched up making the turn into the straight, SAN ANDREAS found a nice gap on the rails to move closer to the leader.
AWESOME STORM, last season's runaway winner and second favourite today, had taken the lead at this stage after being a handy third early.
Ferreira and SAN ANDREAS still had plenty of work to do at top of the straight. At the 300m, just as Ferreira was looking to switch out for a run, the gap closed when a runner in front drifted across. So he took the run on the inside of horses instead.
AWESOME STORM was well clear of the field from the 300m and SAN ANDREAS was still several lengths behind at the 200m. However, the path opened up nice in front of him when the chasing pack in front drifted out.
SAN ANDREAS went through nicely and quickly opened up in fine style in the final 100m to nail AWESOME STORM close home to win by half a length. WHITE HOOF BIRD finished third, just ahead of GOLDEN KING.
The favourite BIG DOCTOR finished 10th after jumping best and was momentarily in front early. STREETS OF FIRE never looked like winning and was a disappointing 14th.
The topweight GRAND CROSS ran a big race, leading on settling down and battled on to finish fifth.
SAN ANDREAS covered the 1200m journey in 1min 9.47secs and paid RM262 for a win.
"He is a strong horse and posses a powerful final sprint," said Ferreira of SAN ANDREAS on whom he was riding for the third consecutive race.
"Everything went according to how we planned, the chance to get closer in the first part of the race. In the straight, I could feel that he has plenty in the tank and he gave it all in the final 200m. That's how he liked to run."
Trainer VV Abdullah Aboo Bakker said he fancied the chance of the horse but the only question mark was the barrier draw.
"I told the rider to drop him early and find a way on the inside rail. Fortunately the front horses went out and leaving him a big gap to come through.
"They set a fast pace in front which suited him. He is a genuine horse and has been working well. He was well within himself for the race."
It was the first big race win for Abdullah since he was granted a licence to train in Malaysia in 2019.
SAN ANDREAS was bought for NZ$9,000 at the Ready To Run Sale and won a Open Maiden race in Singapore before being sold and sent over to Malaysia.
Early last year, he picked up two wins in Class 4 for trainer Simon Dunderdale and was subsequently placed under the care Abdullah.
Under his new trainer, SAN ANDREAS showed further headway with a hattrick at the tailend of last season. The six-year-old picked up another win in a combined Classes 2 & 3 race two months ago, in between finishing second to CHEVAL RAPIDE and STREETS OF FIRE.
SAN ANDREAS has now won nine races in 24 starts.
