THEY don't come much more patient than local handler Wong Tang-ping and the time he is prepared to give his horses, from the top Class One performers to the seemingly modest griffins, is certainly beginning to pay dividends for his former Derby hope Polar Star.
Yesterday the American-bred gelding ran home a two-length winner of the first of two trials over 1,150-metres on the main all-weather surface looking as if he has made a complete recovery from the tendon problem which truncated his season last term, forcing him to miss the Blue Riband event. Polar Star has now trialled three times in the past month or so and has improved with each and every one of them both in appearance and in performance.
Yesterday the classy French champion Thierry Jarnet always had him up on the speed before easing him clear of Alex Wong Siu-tan's potentially very useful English import, Lik Rambo, who had 31/2 lengths to spare over the David Hayes-trained Take Charge with another promising Wong first-season import, Winning Horse, back in fourth. Polar Star was headed momentarily by Lik Rambo midway through the heat, but he was not unduly troubled to reassert his authority on the run to the line.
Tendon problems are usually a nightmare for a trainer as it is so difficult to get a horse back from them to their former level of performance.
In Polar Star's case it is very hard to say just what that level was as he was very much an improving type last season when he won two of his four outings before his campaign ended with a highly creditable third to Electric Flash in the prestigious and competitive San Miguel Silver Tankard. Polar Star was beaten 21/4 lengths in that mid-January mile handicap, running from a rating of 93 and to one of 94, according to my private handicap. It was either during that race, or in trackwork after the event, that his tendon problem flared up.
Lik Rambo raced nine times for the star young Newmarket handler, David Loder, winning a six furlong maiden at Nottingham as a two-year-old before making good progress at three. He scored in a competitive mile handicap at Warwick first time out, the first two coming five lengths clear of their rivals in a 19-runner event and that is a sure sign of good form.
