Two lightly raced youngsters caught the eye behind Diamond Mysterious on Sunday and go into the black book as likely winners before the season is done.
Punters sent out Jolly Jolly as half a chance on his debut in March at 17-1, and he was quickly beaten by Lucky Year in, ostensibly, a poor effort. He was discarded by players on Sunday and sent out at 100-1, but, like most Paul O'Sullivan-trained horses, he produced a significant improvement at his second run. With blinkers added, Jolly Jolly ran on well for second and is going to continue improving with experience.
Just behind him, Thors Bolt caught the attention with a debut dead-heat third after getting back from a wide draw and running on well.
He had actually shown a bit at the trials, but punters were thrown off by an appalling latest turf trial, when trainer Me Tsui Yu-sak put a hood on him. Importantly, he didn't have the hood race day and was back to the horse who trialled strongly next to Highland Hammer. Thors Bolt is going to need more ground than 1,200m, but he is on his way now and a maiden win shouldn't be far off.
And now Almond Lee has put behind him 15 wins to ensure his trainer's licence for another season, Class Five stayer Win Chance could prove a banner horse for the stable.
Before he finally won a race, Win Chance shed almost 40 handicap rating points, but is now racing like a horse who can make quite a lot of those points up again.
Granted, Keith Yeung Ming-lun could not have ridden Win Chance any better on Sunday - something he owed the son of Rakti after Happy Valley - but he won with real authority like a horse who will score again in the cellar and will be competitive in Class Four too.
While Win Chance was acclimatising, Lee kept him to distances of a mile and under, many of them short sprints. It is only since stepping into staying races that we have seen this improvement in Win Chance, and that's worth bearing in mind when assessing his latest against that career line of one win in 18 starts that weighs against him.
