Punters will doubtless pin their hopes to Crown Witness in tonight's Cricket Club Valley Stakes (1,650m) at Happy Valley, but the Gary Ng Ting-keung stable is in great form and offers a better value option for punters with Elephant Cheers. Ng only landed his 13th winner on the weekend to satisfy the Jockey Club's performance benchmark level, but he is finishing the season off strongly with seven winners from his past 72 runners. Traditionally, Ng brings in around 20 wins a season, so there is s

Punters will doubtless pin their hopes to Crown Witness in tonight's Cricket Club Valley Stakes (1,650m) at Happy Valley, but the Gary Ng Ting-keung stable is in great form and offers a better value option for punters with Elephant Cheers. Ng only landed his 13th winner on the weekend to satisfy the Jockey Club's performance benchmark level, but he is finishing the season off strongly with seven winners from his past 72 runners.

Traditionally, Ng brings in around 20 wins a season, so there is still reason to believe he has opportunities left during the final 11 meetings and Elephant Cheers (Eddy Lai Wai-ming) looks a serious chance in the trophy event.

The son of Savabeel has run well at 1,400m from bad barriers in his two races, despite finishing 10th and sixth at Sha Tin.

First-up, Elephant Cheers was caught off the track but boxed on well until his condition gave out in the final stages behind Supreme Knight. Second time out, Lai took the three-year-old back past midfield from his wide draw, found the rail, then Elephant Cheers ran on well to be beaten 3 1/2 lengths by Fun Heroes, despite having to change course in the final 150m.

Notably, Crown Witness (Matthew Chadwick) also ran in both of those races, beating Elephant Cheers by just over three lengths and just over two lengths respectively. As Crown Witness has won since then, he will meet Elephant Cheers nine pounds worse for their runs on May 7.

Key for Ng's runner is that he has had better luck with the barrier draw and will come out of gate one, directly inside the likely leader Crown Witness. That should allow Lai to position up much closer on the back of the favourite, instead of conceding him another big start.

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