Exultation can take advantage of a seemingly favourable rating to make his first start in open company a winning one in the final event on this afternoon's opening meeting of the season at Sha Tin.
Triple Trio players will again be out in force with a jackpot of $78.2 million likely to produce a final pool in excess of $150 million. But for those wanting to keep it simple the Derek Cruz-trained Exultation, a star griffin winner on his only outing of last season, is the suggested bet in the ninth event. This season's new headline jockey, Shane Dye, takes the ride.
Exultation, an inspired International Sale purchase, always worked like one of the very best griffins when he first joined Tony Millard's yard. For some reason he then moved to Cruz and defied barrier 14 on his only start last season to win eased down by 6.75 lengths from Lawrie Fownes' decent prospect, Saintly Partners.
The handicapping department look to have taken a bit of a chance in assessing him to a mark of just 69 on that performance. Exultation came out to nearer an 80 on my griffin handicap and that is backed up by his Topspeed figure. He's the highest rated in the race despite having run only once.
Cruz has made no secret of the regard in which he holds Exultation and hopes and believes he could turn out to be the best griffin he's ever trained. Exultation may have most to fear from the likes of Ovation and Never Say Never.
Fownes appears to have Ovation ready to go well while Never Say Never came to himself last season and has benefited from a close-season drop in the ratings. Universal Winner could be best of the others.