From RACING POST HKLeading trainer John Moore looks likely to take a rare backseat role at the opening day of the new racing season at Sha Tin this afternoon, with depth of quality and weight of numbers making Tony Cruz and Caspar Fownes the trainers to beat. When the gong sounds for day one of the fresh term, it is invariably followed by winners for the handful of trainers who traditionally have their runners fit at this stage.Moore is usually a star performer among that group and brought home
From RACING POST HK
Leading trainer John Moore looks likely to take a rare backseat role at the opening day of the new racing season at Sha Tin this afternoon, with depth of quality and weight of numbers making Tony Cruz and Caspar Fownes the trainers to beat. When the gong sounds for day one of the fresh term, it is invariably followed by winners for the handful of trainers who traditionally have their runners fit at this stage.
Moore is usually a star performer among that group and brought home a treble at this fixture 12 months ago. That was a chunk of the 14 winners he has saddled up at the past seven opening-day meetings. While Moore has good winning claims with United (race nine), he is unusually light for numbers with just four runners.
That should leave the way open for Cruz - habitually a good beginner with eight opening-day winners in the past seven years - to begin the season strongly.
Last season, Cruz and Matthew Chadwick landed a treble with Brave Spirit, All Time High and Terrific Brethren at the first meeting and that combination is likely to be very prominent again this time.
Cruz appears to hold strong winning hopes with Tom's Eighth (race two), Multiglory (race seven), Good Words (race eight) and Travel King (race nine), and has some each-way hopes among the remainder of his runners, too.
Fownes won with the very first runner he sent out on opening day in his debut season and has made a habit of beginning with a winner or two since.
He has only failed to salute on opening day in the two seasons he has been the defending champion trainer, in 2007 and 2009.
Released of that burden by John Size in July, Fownes now brings a strong team to Sha Tin with 10 runners, many of them strong winning chances, including Lucky Nine in the day's feature, the Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive's Cup.
Almond Lee was another to win a double on this day last year with Wine Win and Nightlign, and he has both of them engaged this afternoon, but he has not generally been a strong player on opening day.