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Early shoppers ready to forgive Supreme

Murray Bell

Forgive and forget seems to be the motto adopted by overnight punters for today's mixed meeting at Sha Tin, where expensive last-start failure Supreme Class has been installed a short-priced favourite to take out the final event.

Supreme Class, trained by Tony Cruz and to be handled by Felix Coetzee, started a hot $15 favourite at Happy Valley last time but missed the jump by a length. Instead of racing close to the lead as he had done at his previous start, Supreme Class was positioned just behind midfield and always had the job ahead of him before finishing fourth.

Back to his home track at Sha Tin, and being stretched out to 1,400 metres for the first time, the son of boom sire Redoute's Choice had been installed a $29 favourite on last night's 6pm tote call.

The early shoppers made Paul O'Sullivan's Dansolde the shortest-priced favourite on the programme at $26. The Danasinga gelding reverts to his winning distance of 1,600m after meeting defeats at 2,200m and 2,000m at his last two starts. O'Sullivan has tweaked a subtle gear change with Dansolde, replacing the full-cup blinkers with a visor, which gives horses a small amount of rearward vision through slits in the back of the eye cup.

Another interesting gear change is the decision by trainer John Size to revert to blinkers for disappointing five-year-old High Intelligent in the HSBC Premier Cup (1,600m).

High Intelligent was placed in the Classic Mile at this time last year and then ran a brave fourth in the Hong Kong Derby. However, his form this preparation has been below par and Size has obviously decided it's time for a wake-up call.

Joyful Winner, Alan Aitken's front-page special, heads the Premier Cup betting in a wide-open race at $47 - a price that still looks good value - ahead of stablemate Lightning Star ($62) and topweight The Duke ($66), who ran second to Super Kid in this race last year.

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