Caspar Fownes remains perched near the top of the trainers' standing in a three-way tie for second on eight winners, despite failing to strike a blow on Wednesday night at Sha Tin, and should be able to extract wins with Fiery Raider after an encouraging debut second in the Class Four Muk Min Ha Handicap (1,200m).
Fiery Raider had been slow of out of the gates in his three barrier trials, but travelled well in each of those jump outs. And sporting the Elusive Quality pedigree which has a proven all-weather track form, he was in the market at 9-1 as the fifth choice for Gerald Mosse.
Fiery Raider was slow from gate seven, mustered quickly to settle a handy fifth about three lengths off the leader Global Win, swung the final bend six wide and picked up nicely under at the 200m before peaking on his run 50m out to finish a solid second, beaten only three-quarters of a length by Elusive Prince.
Fiery Raider was scooped up by the Nameson Syndicate from this season's Hong Kong sales in March for HK$3.3 million.
Hailing from Australia, the four-year-old is by the Gone West stallion Elusive Quality, a nine-time winner in the US from 1,200m to 1,650m and the sire of champions Smarty Jones in the US, Raven's Pass in the UK, Elusive City in France and Sepoy in Australia among his 60-plus black-type winners. In Hong Kong, his five winners have all shown a liking for dirt, including Dynamic Blitz, a 120-rated Group winner in Dubai in February; Lucky Quality, 114-rated five-time sprint winner on both surfaces; Amedeo, California Heart and Wednesday victor Bingo Key.
Complementing his likely affinity for the dirt on the top side of his pedigree is a strong female line for the turf.
