The Japanese visitors gave an insight into their training strategies at Sha Tin yesterday when three of their international contenders went head and head in a sharp breeze on the all-weather track.
Sprinters Stakes heroine Curren Chan led off from the 800 metres, followed four lengths away by Pas de Trois, and a comparable margin back to last year's Triple Crown-winning filly Apapane.
Apapane rounded up the two Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint candidates approaching the final 200m and went home the better, completing the metric half mile in 49.4 seconds, the last 400m in 22.0 and the final split a fraction better than 11 seconds.
There was very little between the three over the ultimate 200m and the worse split of the trio was 'only' 11.1 seconds (Curren Chan).
While working a miler or middle-distance racer (Apapane) with two sprinters together at the same distance is relatively unusual in the western world, it's commonplace in Japan, where the speed horses do significantly more work than their Hong Kong counterparts.
The other major Japanese chance is Vase (2,400m) contender Trailblazer, who only raced in the Japan Cup 11 days ago and therefore has race fitness on his side. Yesterday, Trailblazer was restricted to two laps of cantering on the all-weather track.