CLASS shone through at yesterday's barrier trial session run in torrential rain on the Sha Tin all-weather track.
The second of the three heats was one in breathtaking style by David Hill's top sprinter, Compradore, and the first went to Geoff Lane's exciting Irish import from last season, Heavily Armed.
Compradore put up a staggering performance when taking the second trial, confirming that he has trained on in no uncertain fashion from last season.
Sporting the blinkers that have helped him so much, the son of Ballad Rock made every metre of the running under Basil Marcus to come home in a blistering time of one minute 07.7 seconds.
The all-weather surface invariably rides faster when it is rain affected but a measure of this effort is that he clocked a time 2.1 seconds faster than Heavily Armed managed in winning the preceding heat.
Heavily Armed was allowed to lob to the line by his rider, new boy Dean McKeown, but 2.1 seconds still translates to around 12 lengths.
And rarely has a barrier trial field been so stretched out before they have even come out of the final bend as they were yesterday morning in their vain pursuit of Compradore who eventually won eased down by five lengths from Neville Begg's equitrack lover, Local Colour.