Francis Lui Kin-wai walked away from Sha Tin satisfied after bringing up his fourth double for the season but the trainer joked that he almost had two heart attacks as both winners almost threw away what looked to be certain victories yesterday.
Recent stable acquisition Lucky Scepter (Andreas Suborics) burst through to finally win at his 23rd start in Hong Kong, while Up And Coming (Douglas Whyte) was left in front a long way out but scrambled home to give Lui a double and take him to 18 wins for the season.
Up And Coming continued his progress through the ranks, the Kiwi four-year-old adding a second Class Three victory to push his rating close to Class Two territory, but the line couldn't come soon enough with Caspar Fownes-trained Jaeger Bomb surging late out wide to get within a short head.
"He was in front just a bit too long, he started to look around and we were lucky the post arrived in time," Whyte said. "Since Francis has put the blinkers on this horse, he has been a completely different animal, he has turned him right around. Going forward he's going to make a lovely horse, but he might need a bit of break now - he's done a good job and isn't done with yet.
"Today, he hasn't had the softest run - he had to do plenty of work to get there and he was left out in front a long way from home. It was a solid enough effort."
As for Lucky Scepter, the consistent but problematic grey had promised to deliver on a number of occasions since his first local start in January 2012 but it took a change from Ricky Yiu Poon-fai and the perfect setup for him to break his duck.
"He has had a lot of problems and so he's definitely a work in progress," the trainer said. "He had a good draw today which allowed him to sit in the box seat, and I've watched a lot of his runs in the past and he always seems to hesitate when he gets to the front. Today, he was held up entering the straight, the gap appeared at the right time near the 200m, he hit the front at the perfect moment and he didn't have time to hesitate."
