British champion jockey Kieren Fallon can notch the second winner of his winter stint by taking the Fakei Cup with the David Oughton-trained Emphasis tonight.
Fallon, who rode a double century of winners in Britain last season for the third time in succession, won on his first ride but has since been lumbered with a series of mediocre mounts.
No matter how good a jockey may be - and they don't come much better than Fallon - it is not easy to win on sub-standard material. He also had a trip to Florida for the Breeders' Cup meeting.
In Emphasis, Fallon partners a horse who will appreciate the 2,000 metres of this Classes Three and Four event and looks primed for a top showing.
Fallon takes over from Alan Munro, who is on Race To Honour for Alex Wong Siu-tan, but he will have his work cut out to beat Emphasis. Race To Honour heads into unknown territory over this trip and his best efforts have been on the dirt.
Emphasis showed the expected improvement from his first run of the season last time out at Happy Valley when he came from well off the pace to finish three lengths from The Establishment with Surprise Surprise, a stablemate of the selection, in second place.
It was noted that Emphasis had become unbalanced at the 1,000 metres and lost ground. He made quite a lot of it up but was never going to figure.