Hong Kong's favourite son Tony Cruz last night all but sealed his first training championship with a 32-1 double on Sha Tin's mixed grass and dirt card.
Cruz took the third event with his improving all-the-way winner Super Goal Striker and doubled up when Mr Brinker came scooting through to win the fifth going away.
The six-time riding champion, who was also a dual champion apprentice, is enjoying the kind of prolific end-of-season campaign of which his training rivals can only dream.
Last night's double brought up his half century of winners and moved him a yawning eight clear of his nearest pursuer John Moore.
He is, in marathon parlance, in sight of the stadium and with a seemingly impregnable lead. He could probably even get those agonising marathon wobbles and still stagger over the line in front as this is notoriously the most competitive time of the campaign and thus the hardest for any trainer to send out winners.
'I said I was going to let my horses doing the talking and I'd like to keep it that way,' he said after racing.