David Ferraris has set emerging stayer Liberator for next month's Group Three Queen Mother Memorial Cup (2,400m) after a strong win in the Class One feature at Happy Valley last night, the trainer heaping praise on his stable staff for turning the 'quirky' four-year-old around.
Jockey Tim Clark sat right on the speed and poured the pressure on from the 400m, getting most of the field off the bit and Liberator showed a nice kick in the straight to score by a comfortable 11/4 lengths.
The way the gelding, who was 11th in the Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Derby and then runner-up at Happy Valley over 1,800m two weeks ago, finished the 2,200m indicated the mile-and-a-half of the Group Three on May 6 won't be a problem, especially now that a few kinks are out of the one-time handful's system.
'He will stay all day and is a nice horse for the Queen Mother Memorial Cup, where he should get in with a light weight; he'll be hard to beat with 113-pounds on his back,' Ferraris said. 'He has always been a good horse, but he is quirky, credit must go to my trackwork rider Chris McMullen, he is the only one who rides him.
'When we first got him, he was impossible, he would spin around on the track and we could hardly work him. He sometimes just stops when going at a canter and turns around.'
Liberator showed he wasn't totally reformed when he nearly dislodged Clark on the way to the gates with the same trick. 'He tried to turn around, so I just slid off him and started again,' Clark said.