Caspar Fownes joined an elite group with yesterday's five-timer, becoming just the third trainer in Hong Kong history to accomplish the feat. Reigning champion trainer John Size said: 'It's a remarkable feat but I'm not surprised he has been able to do it. He had so many seconds early in the season and eventually your luck turns around and he was always a chance of putting a string of wins together.' Fownes took five of the first eight races yesterday, but even that could not quite match the five-timer of former trainer Robert Burns in the late 1970s. Locals with good memories recalled the Australian mentor Burns, whose runners were regularly partnered by jockey Peter Miers, winning five of the seven races at Sha Tin soon after the track opened in 1978. Miers himself has a place in the record books as having won six races on a card during his time in Hong Kong racing. While four wins on a card has been far from unknown in recent seasons, the only other trainer to have notched five wins was Wong Tang-ping. He retired in June 2002, after winning the final race of the season with his final runner, Northern Gold Ball, and is now training across the Pearl River delta in Macau. But Wong saddled up five winners, including Miss Piggy, Star Of Marble and Northern Fire Ball, at the Ladies' Purse meeting at Sha Tin back in 1994. Visiting American Hall Of Fame jockey, Julie Krone, rode in Hong Kong that day and she played her part in history, arriving for Wong on the fifth of the successful horses. The tally is a Hong Kong record but falls short of some hauls achieved overseas. Hong Kong-based Australian trainer David Hayes once trained a world record six Group winners on a single day, including two Group Ones, on the Victoria Derby day card in Melbourne in 1990.
