Need You Tonight (Hat Ninja – En Exceso) was able to retain his crown in Friday’s Gran Premio Republica Argentina at Palermo. Ridden by William Pereyra, the son of Hat Ninja was kept covered on the inside rail for the majority of the contest, but once brought out to make his challenge, he quickly asserted and ran the fastest individual split in the field for each of the final 4 furlong splits as he ultimately ran out a relatively comfortable winner. The long sweeping bend and lengthy home straight certainly play to the strengths of this 5-year-old, who stayed on under a very confident Pereyra and came home in a time that was over 3.5s slower than he recorded to win this race 12 months ago. However, this race had a much smaller field and developed later, so the overall time figure does need to be treated with some caution when being used as a comparison tool. Having been slowly away from the gate and over a second behind the early leader and eventual runner-up (Vota Bien) at the end of the opening couple of furlongs, Need You Tonight did well to recover and ultimately win going away. At a peak average of 23.71 ft, Need You Tonight had a much shorter stride than the runner-up (24.66 ft), but he is a relentless galloper and was able to maintain his stride frequency all the way up the Palermo home straight. Average stride figures of 2.37, 2.37 and 2.32 per second in the final 3 furlongs all matched or bettered his race average figure and having hit the line strongly with a race best late speed figure of 35.66 mph.