Champagne day IS on cards for TT punters

A freshen up, drop back in distance and the addition of blinkers could see Champagne Days salute again for trainer Michael Chang Chun-wai and jockey Weichong Marwing in the final leg of tomorrow's HK$6 million Triple Trio at Sha Tin.

Marwing partnered the four-year-old to his only success over a mile on December 19, and is reunited with the Encosta De Lago gelding in ideal circumstances from an inside draw.

The freshen-up will ensure Champagne Days has the dash to outsprint his rivals, and he will relish the faster tempo of the 1,400m journey, and wearing blinkers rather than side winkers. Besides having a number of positives next to his name on paper, Champagne Days has the ability to travel behind the speed and should make great use of his draw - a huge bonus for punters looking to make him a banker in the Partnering For Community Needs Handicap.

Last-start winner Scent Of Osmanthus will take some beating for in-form trainer Me Tsui Yu-sak, but Howard Cheng Yue-tin will have a trickier time negotiating a good passage from gate 10, which takes some of the gloss off the Stravinsky gelding's prospects as a banker.

Lucky Chevalier looks a bold chance from a good draw in gate two, but should be taken on trust as he has looked likely to figure in a number of his past outings, but has managed only one top-three finish in eight starts.

Perhaps the in-form Jeff Lloyd can extract the best from the David Ferraris-trained three-year-old and lift the son of Lucky Owners to a breakthrough win, but it is hard to rely on the horse in a banker role in the meantime.