It probably is not a tag anybody particularly seeks out, but Brett Prebble and Francis Lui Kin-wai are quickly becoming the "broken wind" stars of Sha Tin.
The pair combined recently to win in Class Five with Distinct Commander - a horse Prebble said would never have seen the cellar grade but for his breathing problems - and they teamed again on Sunday in the grade with Lui's new acquisition, Win Along, whose similar issues see him placed much lower in life than he might otherwise have been.
Since the move to Lui, Prebble has done plenty of work on Win Along, but was not entirely convinced it was all going to work out happily
"I was working him and he was making a whistling noise. But then one morning Francis put the tongue tie on for his work and he was a different horse," Prebble said.
Win Along had already been wearing the tongue tie for most of his racing career, so Prebble was conservative in assessing him for the drop to Class Five, but did believe from his work that Win Along had something on the opposition.
"He worked like he should be in Class Three, so I was confident he would run well, as long as the breathing didn't flare up," he said. "Now that Francis has got him going, I would expect him to run well at the bottom of Class Four now but with the same proviso."
But Bunker Shot, Prebble's earlier winner for Caspar Fownes, is a different matter altogether, with the three-year-old breaking through for the first and certainly not the last time.
Bunker Shot has raced well enough in three attempts at Happy Valley and on the all-weather track, but the switch to Sha Tin was the making of him.
"He's a big horse, big and scopy, and I'm sure that getting him onto the bigger track was the key," Prebble said.
"He's green and raw and he needs to be able to balance up, which he hasn't been able to do on those smaller tracks.
"Sure, everything happened the right way from a good draw today and the field just opened up at the right time, and all of that helped him to win, but I quite like him. We won't see the best of him until next season."
The win was a crucial one for Fownes in the tight trainers' title fight, but the rest of the day was less positive with his well-fancied Family Interests pulling up at the rear with mucopus and Victory Hero suffering a worse fate, breaking down in the left hind leg during the final race.
