Master trainer Ivan Allan has won dozens of bigger races than yesterday's Ladies' Purse, but his broad grin told the world he had won few greater victories.
'Now that is satisfaction!' Allan beamed after Larry Yung Chi-kin's former top-class gelding Housemaster (Weichong Marwing) held Dashing Winner at bay to take the feature by a short head and register his first win since the Group One Champions & Chater Cup in May 2000.
'It isn't so hard to win races with sound horses - it's the horses like this one that give you a real sense of achievement when you win. It is very satisfying as a horse trainer when something like this happens. Now I hope they will put him in the Hong Kong Cup field because he's finally right again.'
The highest prizemoney earner in yesterday's Ladies' Purse despite having only one win, Housemaster was one of the stars of the 1999-2000 season. He went down narrowly in the Hong Kong Derby and also the Queen Elizabeth II Cup before taking the Champions & Chater Cup that season, but his high promise dissolved in the shadow of a tendon injury soon afterwards.
'Actually, the irony of the Champions & Chater win being his last before today was that he was lame with a stone bruise three days before he won that,' Allan said. 'He still managed to come out and win the race and I thought what a great job he'd done to overcome that problem.'
But a bigger problem soon arrived, the gelding has been extremely lightly raced since - he had his 20th start yesterday - and Allan admitted yesterday that Housemaster's high-class ability had probably not helped in battling his tendon injury.
