Forte and Dance respond to Ng's gentle touch
Gary Ng Ting-keung is known for his gentle touch with horses and while some trainers may snigger at his amazingly kind kid-glove treatments, Ng had the last laugh yesterday with a 353-1 double.
Two veterans in Class Four - Forte ($238.50) and Elephant Dance ($148.50) - at opposite ends of the distance spectrum saw Ng share training honours with Almond Lee and Paul O'Sullivan. But the interesting thing is that neither gelding had so much as a single gallop since they last raced.
'They are both old horses and they can get tired more easily, so I prefer to keep them fresh,' Ng said. 'They don't need much work anyway - this is my style.'
Forte, who scored in the afternoon opener at 1,000 metres, has been a real challenge but Ng has now won three races with the seven-year-old, who was formerly prepared by John Size.
Yesterday, Forte sported some new equipment - bright, white lambswool sidewinkers - but they were never intended to address Forte's bad hanging habits, as many punters thought.
'Last time he missed the start, and he's been doing that a bit lately,' the trainer said. 'So I thought the sidewinkers may help him concentrate at the start a bit more.'
Elephant Dance is a year older than Forte and is an amazingly clean-winded stayer. At his last start, he finished within 11/2 lengths of Grabbit over 2,200m at Sha Tin on March 31 when having his first outing for 31 days, but had not been galloped at all during that time. 'I thought he was ridden a little bit further back than he should have been last time, so today I asked Jacky [Tong Chi-kit] to make sure he was in a very forward position,' Ng said.
'He's just a one-paced horse and this was the right way to ride him.'
Tong confirmed the instructions and said Elephant Dance was always comfortable racing outside the playmaker Sunrise Rainbow.
'After passing the 800 metres, I thought the pace was too slow so I allowed him a bit more rein and went up to join the leader and start to put some pressure on from the 600 metres,' Tong said.
'It proved to be the right thing. He's an honest old horse and when he's happy like he was today, he keeps on strongly at the one pace.'
This was Elephant Dance's sixth win from 69 starts, and the first prize of HK$324,500 saw his bank balance rise to over HK$4.3 million.
