Brilliant Good Ba Ba peaking at the right time, warns Schutz

The bad news for rivals of reigning Horse of the Year Good Ba Ba in the countdown to Sunday's HK$3 million Cathay Pacific International Mile Trial is that his trainer Andreas Schutz believes he's in the same form as 12 months ago.

Good Ba Ba is the only horse to achieve a grand slam of Hong Kong's four major mile races in the one season and the 2007 Mile Trial is where it all began for John Yuen Se-kit's colour bearer.

Although Good Ba Ba was beaten into sixth place first-up in the Sha Tin Trophy on October 26, Schutz believes the progress he has made in the last four weeks has been substantial.

'He's come on very well since the last run and he's had two solid gallops since, with one more to come tomorrow morning [Friday],' Schutz said.

'Looking at him, I would say we have him in pretty much the same condition as at this time last year. That's not quite at the same peak as we had him for the Hong Kong Mile, but that race is still three weeks away. But comparing him to the way he was prior to the Mile Trial [last year], in my judgment he's the same.'

Good Ba Ba had a rousing gallop on the main turf track at Sha Tin on Tuesday, working wide out with stablemate Stolen Thunder. The champion miler gave Stolen Thunder the go-by at the 200m and accelerated away to score by three lengths, running 1,200m in 1:20, the last 400m in 23.2 seconds.