After yo-yoing in the ratings over the past 12 months, the John Size-trained stayer Sapelli bounces back into the Group Three Premier Plate allotted the same weight he carried to victory in the race last year and can win again, especially with a couple of major rivals drawn wide.
A course and distance specialist, the backmarker scooted around a small field in the 2011 Premier Plate with Eddie Lai Wai-ming aboard to score a short-head victory, but after that his form and rating nose-dived.
Through 14 straight runs outside the top three, among them a last in a Class One over this pet distance, he dropped from a peak of 107 to 93, from where he was able to score in a confidence-building Class Two on a good-to-yielding track.
Size had gone back to blinkers for the first time since the early part of the six-year-old's career, but some felt the cut in the track, which he could get again, had as much to do with the turnaround.
Whatever the case, the chestnut confirmed he was back in form when he ran a solid third behind two of his rivals, Packing OK and Pure Champion, in the Group Three Centenary Vase (1,800m) five weeks ago and is now rated 102, two points higher than this time last year.
Size has shipped in champion South African jockey Felix Coetzee to ride Real Specialist in the Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Derby and he has been engaged on Sapelli.