With Joao Moreira suspended and Zac Purton's day falling short of expectations at Sha Tin, 13-time champion jockey Douglas Whyte was happy to fill the void and take centre stage with a winning Sha Tin four-timer.
"What do they say? When the cat's away? I have to take what I can get these days," said Whyte with a wry grin as he moved to 57 wins for the season.
Whyte opened the scoring with John Moore-trained Sea Ruby at the gelding's first time on the dirt track and later added Jun Huo for Francis Lui Kin-wai in a similar scenario, but he made his presence felt in the turf events too with All My Gain for Gary Ng Ting-keung and Apollo's Choice for David Hall in the final contest.
Apollo's Choice has had a checkered local career since arriving off the back of a Group Two Sandown Guineas placing as a three-year-old in Melbourne, but finally managed to find the winner's stall to cap off Whyte's big afternoon.
"It has been a long process. Like many horses, he took longer to acclimatise than we'd hoped he would and he wasn't enjoying the hard tracks," explained Hall, who selected and bought Apollo's Choice for the owner himself.
"I liked him as a young horse with some scope, but he was a big boy when he arrived, and a colt, so he was only going to get bigger and the firm ground would have become an issue. So, when he got a relatively minor tendon injury, it forced our hand as far as gelding him. He was gelded while he rested with the injury and since he came back to training, he's really come on a lot."
Whyte said the improvement even from the four-year-old's most recent fifth had been the difference between winning and losing yesterday.
"That last run indicated he was on his way - he picked up quickly at the top of the straight but he hit the front too early and couldn't sustain it," Whyte said. "With another trial and some more work in him today, he was much stronger and felt like the real deal. He gave me a lovely feel."
Sea Ruby had been well in the betting at each of his eight prior starts after some good trials and was wearing thin with the public after four minor placings, but Whyte was not surprised the turn came on the dirt, although he probably did not expect the five-length romp.
"I rode him here on the Sha Tin turf one day and said to John the horse just needed some cushion. I asked him to take him to Happy Valley and I think I was out when he ran there and Joao Moreira's been riding him since," Whyte said.
"Sea Ruby hasn't won, but he's been knocking on the door. He always worked like a decent horse and on the kinder surface today he let down well. He isn't done with either if he stays on this surface."
Jun Huo was another who had impressed Whyte in the mornings, but had battled a little on the firm ground at Sha Tin and appreciated the switch to the dirt.
"He's a big boy and he feels the pinch when he hits the hard ground, but he's worked and trialled like a Class One horse on the all-weather, so I knew he would take to it," he said. "He was travelling really comfortably today mid-race then I had to get going around them early - Zac Purton was getting very cheap sectionals on the leader and nobody was challenging. I didn't want him to be outsprinted and it was the winning move."
