Determined Brett Doyle was all smiles yesterday after a Sha Tin double put him on the Hong Kong scoreboard for the first time.
Doyle, here on a three-month Club Jockey's licence, needed to draw on all his dynamism in the saddle to prevail on the Alex Wong Yu-on-trained Markgraf in the second before completing a much more emphatic victory on Derek Cruz's Skase Race in the last.
Visiting jockeys are always keen to get off the mark, wherever they are riding, but in Hong Kong that's doubly the case.
Any new kid on the block who endures a blank three or four meetings invariably has to endure a whispering campaign that can soon build to a crescendo of criticism.
So it was no surprise when the pugnacious Doyle, a top Newmarket-based rider with the class to land the last two Dubai championships during the British close season, conceded: 'It's a relief to get off the mark.' Doyle and Markgraf, who benefited from the first-time application of a visor, had to survive an objection from Eric Legrix on runner-up Quick Silver.
But from the video replay, the interference which occurred surely did so too close to home to materially affect the result, and it was very hard to argue with the race-meeting stewards' decision to dismiss the protest.
