Bounty's run gives Legrix double New Year cheer
ERIC Legrix started the New Year on a much healthier note with an opening double at Sha Tin yesterday.
The French riding star was at his most sympathetic on Patrick Biancone's Long Run who was not troubled to take the first griffin event of the season as his 6-5 starting price and his trackwork indicated he would.
Legrix then produced Tony P. H. Chan's Bounty with a devastating late run to take the second from Lucky Touch at the far more lucrative odds of 22-1.
''I just hope the year continues how it has started,'' smiled Legrix after the races.
And well Legrix might hold out such hopes as his season to date has not been overly blessed with good fortune.
Biancone's yard has been sadly out of form - yesterday's win from Long Run was only his sixth of the campaign and Legrix has already had to sit out seven meetings due to two careless riding charges.
But the signs are that things may just be starting to pick up for Biancone and Legrix as Long Run's win followed hard on the heels of City Raider's victory on Wednesday night.
Long Run was always travelling easily in the first and only had to be shaken up to score by a length and a quarter from Brian Kan Ping-chee's Executive Action who stayed on strongly to pip Ivan Allan's Successful Years for second.
There was a good run from Cutlass Perfection who ran far above his trackwork to claim fourth with Polar Star also staying on well behind the placegetters to suggest that he has a future.
Bounty's win was Chan's eighth of the season. After a difficult start, the former champion jockey is really beginning to hit his straps and justify the Club's decision to allow him to make the transition from the riding to the training ranks.
Bounty may have started at 22-1 but the word is that he didn't go unsupported.
Good luck to his supporters and it could well pay dividends to join the Bounty bandwagon next time as he is going to get farther than yesterday's 1,000 metres and he should be better for it.
The David Hill-Basil Marcus bandwagon is always worth hopping on and they were on the scoresheet once again with Kowloon Might in the third.
That in-form duo of David Oughton and Mick Kinane were also successful, this time when Kinane managed to conjure a winning run from the enigmatic Highland Laddie in a driving finish to the fifth with Star Greeting.
