Warrior's much-anticipated debut proves well worth the wait

Racing fans waited all season to see how good John Size-trained debutant Warrior would be - and now that they know, they will have to wait until the new season for chapter two.

The O'Reilly three-year-old won the opener up the straight 1,000m yesterday by more than four lengths in a common canter under Douglas Whyte, but Size said immediately that would be all for the current term.

Warrior had trialled sensationally last year in Sydney before his import to Hong Kong, and has impressed each time he has stepped out in trials here, but Size has again shown the patience which has won him five trainers' championships by waiting for yesterday's moderate event to kick the gelding's career off late in the season.

'He did take a while to acclimatise here, that's true, but I wasn't in any great hurry with him anyway,' Size said yesterday.

'I felt he was still immature, still developing and that was the priority. As the season progressed, I could see that it wouldn't be a good idea to think about any long programme with Warrior but it was nice to get him to the races once to show the owners what he could do, and thankfully he has done all that was expected.

'Plenty of horses trial well without producing it when they get into a race, so you have to give him that and not too many win as easily as that at their first start. He'll go out for a break now, get another few months maturity on him and he'll be much tougher as a four-year-old.'