When highly sought-after stable transfer Common Goal landed in the yard of Manfred Man Ka-leung, the plan was always to head to the all-weather track for a first-up, Class Four kill.
In the end, Man's handy acquisition did the job on the turf after being balloted out of a dirt race, but the talented grey can act as a banker in the final leg of another monster Triple Trio, boosted by a HK$26 million jackpot, when he heads back to the inner circuit on Sunday.
Common Goal came to Man from Andy Leung Ting-wah winless in 18 starts, but the feeling was the five-year-old had fallen well below his best in the ratings. A couple of trials, including one particularly eye-catching effort on the all-weather track in blinkers, put the writing on the wall for what would ultimately be a comfortable win.
Brett Prebble rode the horse in both trials and in the win over 1,400m a month ago, skirting wide on a track which soaked up a massive amount of rain.
Up in grade and distance, to Class Three over 1,650m, Prebble will navigate from gate seven against a field which contains a number of course specialists, but drops away sharply.
A strong course and distance effort for Leung four starts back showed Common Goal revels on this surface, as did his great trial on the track.
Leo's Pride (Olivier Doleuze) hadn't raced on the all-weather until the end of last term, but a third placing then was a glimpse of what was to come for the, up until then, under-achiever.