Trainer Danny Shum Chap-shing has come out running this season to be sitting third on the championship ladder and a switch to his in-form yard may be just the move to get the best from Charity Spirit in the Lok Sin Tong Cup (1,000m) today. With win tallies of 19, 21 and 18 for his most recent seasons, Shum's performances had fallen well below what was expected after he burst on to the training scene some seasons ago with 130 successes in his first three years. But he seems to have come back to h

Trainer Danny Shum Chap-shing has come out running this season to be sitting third on the championship ladder and a switch to his in-form yard may be just the move to get the best from Charity Spirit in the Lok Sin Tong Cup (1,000m) today. With win tallies of 19, 21 and 18 for his most recent seasons, Shum's performances had fallen well below what was expected after he burst on to the training scene some seasons ago with 130 successes in his first three years.

But he seems to have come back to his best, with headliners in the yard like Little Bridge and some highly-promising younger horses, and has charged to 18 wins with well over half the season to come.

And the magic of a change to a winning team could be what Charity Spirit (Gerald Mosse) is looking for, after the grey's 12 starts for five placings since landing here last term for Gary Ng Ting-keung. Last Wednesday night, Shum sent out another sprinter, Turf Magic, having his first run for the yard. Turf Magic was able to put a few moderate recent efforts behind him to finish off strongly into third in a performance like his old self.

If Shum can conjure the same from Charity Spirit, then today may just be the day that he can break his maiden status and put behind him a record that reads worse than it should.

He has been narrowly touched off when second behind some handy ones in Eternal Beauty, Golden Bauhinia and most recently Flying Colours, and there have been several occasions when Charity Spirit's performances have been mitigated by bad luck, none more so than his latest outing at Happy Valley.

Runners went everywhere on the first turn that night in an incident that earned two jockeys careless riding bans, and Charity Spirit was one of the main sufferers, so punters can simply draw a line through that run.

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