Leading trainer John Moore looks likely to take a rare backseat role at the opening day of the new racing season at Sha Tin this afternoon, with depth of quality and weight of numbers making Tony Cruz and Caspar Fownes the trainers to beat.
When the gong sounds for day one of the fresh term, it is invariably followed by winners for the handful of trainers who traditionally have their runners fit at this stage.
Moore is usually a star performer among that group and brought home a treble at this fixture 12 months ago. That was a chunk of the 14 winners he has saddled up at the past seven opening-day meetings. While Moore has good winning claims with United (race nine), he is unusually light for numbers with just four runners.
That should leave the way open for Cruz - habitually a good beginner with eight opening-day winners in the past seven years - to begin the season strongly.
Last season, Cruz and Matthew Chadwick landed a treble with Brave Spirit, All Time High and Terrific Brethren at the first meeting and that combination is likely to be very prominent again this time.
Cruz appears to hold strong winning hopes with Tom's Eighth (race two), Multiglory (race seven), Good Words (race eight) and Travel King (race nine), and has some each-way hopes among the remainder of his runners, too.
