As a Group One race, the Jockey Club gives owners the option to import a jockey for the big occasion.

Beadman's last engagement for Moore was to handle Joyful Winner in the Group One Yasuda Kinen in Tokyo last June, when the pair finished a commendable third to Bullish Luck in the final leg of the Asian Mile Challenge.

Jockey Club licensing secretary Kim Kelly said Beadman will be free to accept rides in any of the other nine races on the big Sha Tin programme, which will also feature the HK$8 million Stewards' Cup at the metric mile.

Trainer Gary Ng Ting-keung was scarcely taking the optimistic view after five-year-old Classic King scored his first win for almost two years with the significant assistance of a perfect Felix Coetzee ride.

Classic King ($40 favourite) enjoyed the run of the race in the mile Class Five contest and, ironically for a horse who has experienced a litany of problems, went to the line as though he had something in reserve.

Twelve months ago, Classic King had arthroscopic surgery to remove bone chips from both knees.

Ng, renowned for his gentle touch with unsound horses, was just the man to get the chestnut back to form once more.

'I am very pleased for the owners that we have been able to win this race today, because he's a horse who's had so many problems,' Ng explained.

'But it's difficult to plan too far ahead. The only plan I have at the moment is to look at him in the morning and see that he's OK. If he pulls up well, and is still sound, then we can see what sort of races are available.'

Almond Lee Yee-tat had two words to explain the back-to-back wins of New Zealand-bred gelding King Acrylic in the University Hall Alumni Association Handicap - 'six months'.

'The owner Mr Ho [Ka-keung] bought this horse - it actually had nothing to do with me,' Lee explained. 'But I went to see him in December, 2005, and saw that he was so immature, it would have been wrong to bring him here at that time.

'I told Mr Ho to leave him there another six months to mature, and he accepted my advice. That extra time has been the making of him.'

Although the win was still something of a surprise to Lee - as the tote price of $187 suggests - the win served to further endear the trainer to the stock of Waikato Stud stallion Danasinga.

'That's my fifth winner by sons of Danasinga this season,' said Lee, 'three for Super Dana and now two from this horse.'

The Manoel Nunes bandwagon rolled on in its typically low-key way, with the former Brazilian and Macau champion landing the fifth event on Sunny Riviera for South African horseman Tony Millard.

It was Sunny Riviera's first win since September 2005, when he scored over the same course and distance as a member of the John Size yard.

The Brazilian jockey said Millard had left the tactical decisions to him, and Nunes's previous experience with the horse had taught him that relaxed at the tail of the field would be the recipe most likely to succeed.