Glory to reign for Munro
Rising Glory can take advantage of barrier one to reverse earlier form with Gold Talent and Boy Dragon and take this evening's second event on another tricky night's racing at Happy Valley.
The rail is out to the C position and this will almost certainly mean that those on the speed or on the rails, or preferably a combination of both, will have a significant advantage.
This season the advantage of early speed or a rails run has far outweighed any other form factor in trying to puzzle out these Valley events.
Rising Glory comes into the second event, a Class Five 1,000-metre dash, having been leading them up in Class Four.
That grade is too deep for him these days but he has shown already shown he can prevail in this grade with a short-head second to stablemate Kinling Superstar down the Sha Tin straight 1,000-metre chute.
He was aided by a biased track that day but nevertheless showed good speed to race in the van and that early speed is going to be crucial to this evening's outcome.
Jockey-of-the-moment Alan Munro, buoyed by his glorious victories on Industrialist in the Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup and in the Gold Cup, will know all about the importance of exploiting Rising Glory's early speed from gate one.
If there is one draw in the whole of local racing where the barrier confers the biggest advantage, it is barrier one at Happy Valley in these 1,000-metre sprints - especially when the rail is out.
There will be pressure from the outside, particularly from the speedy Gold Talent.
So Munro will be attempting to either keep Gold Talent trapped on his outside, and thus having to work harder than Rising Glory, or take the perfect trail behind him.
Either way Rising Glory has all the attributes to fully exploit his inside draw.
Gold Talent remains a considerable danger as these two really do look like sharing the run of the race.
Boy Dragon must also come into serious consideration.
He put in a lacklustre display last time, when wearing a tongue tie for the first time. He never chased at all and there has to be some concern that he resented the gear change.
That aside, his form prior to his last-start flop is strong. He scored a particularly good win over course and distance when having to switch out and around his field when his victims included Gold Talent.
And he had no luck in a couple of dashes down the Sha Tin straight, including behind Kinling Superstar and Rising Glory, when drawn on the wrong side of the track.
Elsewhere on the card, Danswinner is strongly fancied to beat Dancing Spirit in the fifth, the night's best race.
Trainer Wong Tang-ping is finishing the season with a flourish as is Club Jockey, the demon Douglas Whyte.
They have an excellent strike rate together and Ping appears to have the talented Danswinner right back to his best.
There was significant support for Danswinner last time when a close fourth to Red Diamond in a competitive mile event at the Valley. And he appears to have come on by leaps and bounds since that creditable effort.
Dancing Spirit loves the Valley and will have giggled when hearing all this recent rain.
