HKJC
Paul O’Sullivan always suspected he would make a slow start this season but the booking of Moreira for Mi Blanco in race one worked out perfectly as the five-year-old relished a strong pace to break his duck at the nineteenth attempt.
O’Sullivan reports that he has “a stack of new horses ready to go” and is set to be much busier than normal at morning trials in the next week or two.
“I could have ten unraced PPG’s at the next sets of trials and one or two of them look alright, but the slow start was always going to happen this year and we’ll pick up now,” he said.
Mi Blanco was prepared at Sha Tin but Conghua also remains a central part in O’Sullivan’s plans.
“If we use Conghua cleverly it will be a huge help,” he added. “Apart from its beauty, its functionality is second to none and by preparing horses there when the tracks here are closed we’ll be able to get going much earlier.”
Michael Chang started the evening tied with O’Sullivan on three winners and ended the evening level with the Kiwi on four after Star Superior (131lb) saluted at almost 17-1 in race two.
Good Fit proved a fine servant to the Chang stable until joining Frankie Lor last season and continued to pay his way with his seventh Hong Kong success in race three.
Teetan was in the plate again and Lor felt the fact that the AW track was helping those ridden from off the pace more than usual played a key part in the success.
Zilong’s win in race six provided another example of how a change of stable can help a horse return to peak form.
The five-year-old son of Shocking had shown promise without winning on several occasions when trained by O’Sullivan but got off the mark on just his second run for Peter Ho with a strong-galloping performance under Dylan Mo. -HKJC