Eastern Promise won't go much closer to falling in a race than he did first-up last month, but the sprinter gets an ideal set-up to turn that around in the Fakei Cup (1,000m) at Happy Valley today, reports Racing Post HK. Vincent Ho Chak-yiu takes the ride on the Manfred Man Ka-leung-trained sprinter after apprentice Dicky Lui Cheuk-yin was referred to the riding instructor after his display on September 17 behind You Read My Mind.
From a wide gate, Lui was shifting Eastern Promise across behind the main part of the field after 200m in that race and clipped the heels of another runner, blundered and did everything but hit the ground.
Stewards decided Lui should have been more careful in shifting his ground and, spat out to the rear in the incident, Eastern Promise's race was over. Every horse he could beat home was a bonus so his ninth in the circumstances is easy to overlook.
But the gelding had finished off last season in good form, including a Class Four victory at this track and distance, and today's feature looks to pan out in similar fashion to that winning scenario.
Eastern Promise jumps from gate two, with the horses on either side of him likely to look for the lead or close to it - Roman Legend (Matthew Chadwick) and Super Fresh - and that should see Ho slide up into an ideal trailing spot behind them.
But the positives don't end there as horses drawn further out like Tomodachi, Ensemble, Charity Joy(Alex Lai Hoi-wing) and even Jun Dao, are also going to be pressing forward and pushing the lead tempo along early.
Eastern Promise should be the horse emerging from the back of the leaders in the straight as that early pace takes its toll and should prove too strong.
The other runner suited by a run-on tempo looks John Moore's very talented young horse, Smart Man, with Joao Moreira aboard.