Brown sings in the rain with 32-1 outsider
Almond Lee Yee-tat-trained Sing Fay Fay might have surprised most people winning the Porto Handicap at odds almost 32-1 but jockey Corey Brown was not one of them as he finally broke the ice for his Hong Kong stint.
Brown had won two Group One races the week before he left Sydney for Hong Kong, but that counted for little as he had gone the first five meetings of his club jockey contract with barely a whiff of the winning post.
'I thought everything was about to change when I rode Happy Kid in the fourth today,' Brown said. 'I went off half an hour early. Happy Kid travelled up so well that I thought he was going to win when he loomed up but he just couldn't get past Shining Day.
'If I'd been riding winners, I think I would have been really confident about Sing Fay Fay. He'd worked really well but I worried if maybe I was just getting carried away because I was hungry for a win.'
And Lee did nothing to ignite Brown's enthusiasm when the jockey told him he thought Sing Fay Fay could win yesterday.
'Almond said to me that the horse had worked well all season but just hadn't put it together in his races,' Brown said. 'But he was always going to be in the finish today.
'We had a great run through the race, I came out from behind the second horse and thought I had his measure all the way. Sing Fay Fay certainly had no problems with the all-weather and he brought his trackwork to the races this time.'
Lee's first season tally ticked over to 18 wins when the dominance of the top stables has made it tough for the new trainers to make a mark.
He had to make himself content with just the one winner as his stable star Being Famous failed by only a nose to win his seventh race for the season in the final race.
