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Alan Aitken

'I couldn't have imagined starting the season like this but I'm absolutely thrilled with it,' says trainer after Valley treble

China's Olympic gold medallists brought the crowds to the opening Happy Valley meeting last night despite the rain but punters cheered just as loudly for trainer Caspar Fownes as he blazed a treble and claimed the Hong Kong Country Club Challenge Cup.

Fownes is setting a hot early pace with five wins from his first 16 runners and lightly raced Fifty Fifty (Patrick Payne) never looked like losing the Cup under a brilliant ride.

'The horse has come back really well and Paddy's ride made it all so easy,' Fownes said. 'I couldn't have imagined starting the season like this but I'm absolutely thrilled with it.'

Fownes didn't have a runner in the China Olympic Gold Medallists Trophy and kept his 100 per cent strike rate together in features this season - two from two runners - having snared the Chief Executive's Cup on opening day.

'The owners love to win cup races so I targeted this race with Fifty Fifty from some time ago and he did the job brilliantly. This horse just gives you everything he's got every time and tonight that was good enough,' Fownes explained.

'I certainly don't thing he's finished yet and I'll find a nice 1,400 metres for him back at Sha Tin.'

Fownes probably took more pride in the lowly Class Five victory of Mr President (Brett Prebble) who has not proved quite so generous in his 34-start career.

'He's been disappointing to me. Last season he always looked well but kept doing things wrong and it was really getting to annoy me,' Fownes said after Mr President claimed just his second career victory. 'So this season I just said 'no more Mr Nice Guy' and got tough on the horse. I gave him plenty of work during the break and got a lot of weight off him. He was very forward tonight.'

And Fownes and Prebble cooked up the ideal plan to take advantage of the fitness edge.

'Mr President has begun really well in his trials lately and I said to Brett to ride him positively - in fact he rode exactly as we discussed,' Fownes explained. 'He skipped clear a fair way out but when you have a fit horse at this stage of the season in Class Five often you can have a big advantage just being in front and making the others do the chasing.'

Fownes' other new partner, apprentice Jacky Tong Chi-kit, took the prize on HK Island Victory in a happy start to his association with the trainer.

'It's great for Jacky. With 10 pounds off, I felt the horse had a great chance and he rode him a treat,' Fownes said.

'I think Jacky's claim is going to be very useful to these kinds of horses in the stable.'

Derek Cruz finally got to celebrate his 300 win in Hong Kong racing when Olivier Doleuze steered home Majin Buu for the trainer in Race Six. Cruz had been sitting on 299 wins since early June.

'I guess it's another page in the book,' Cruz grinned.

'I thought this horse might go well here at Happy Valley. He didn't really settle in well last season but seems better acclimatised now. I though his trial win was good the other day so I was hopeful - the owner has been very patient waiting for this first win so I'm very pleased for him.'

Champion Valley trainer last season, Dennis Yip Chor-hong appropriately enough won the opening Valley race of the season, with Fantastic Win, surprising jockey Douglas Whyte with the ease of the victory.

'He'd been working quite well and I was confident of a good run but I wasn't expecting that,' Whyte said after an almost five-length romp. Whyte was off the mark for the term and made it a double in the final race as Manfred Man Ka-leung's Successive Gains relished the rain-softened track.

'It's not how you start it's how you finish that counts but it was good to get off the mark tonight,' Whyte said. 'Manfred deserves great credit for that last winner. He's had soundness problems in front and behind so to get him right has not been easy.'



Gold medal performance from flying Fownes