Horses to follow were hardly thick on the ground at Sha Tin on Saturday at a lacklustre meeting with small fields and slow tempos, but the former Melbourne galloper, Roundabout, was an exception to that view.
Looking like the run would improve him, Roundabout got home well for third to Racing Hero in the final race and his winning turn should not be too far away.
Trained by Peter Moody in Australia, Roundabout won two and placed in five of eight starts and both wins came over the same distance as Saturday's race, 1,400m.
In Australia, Roundabout raced handy to the lead but, after bumping with Kiram at the start, he was behind midfield on Saturday before tracking up the rear of the eventual winner on the rail midrace.
Supporting the view that Roundabout was slightly short of top fitness, the grey ran a little keenly early on, but there was nothing amiss with his finish and, fitter next time and able to race on the speed with a clean run early, the Chris So Wai-yin-trained gelding should be very competitive.
The Class Fours on the weekend were all weak events, but that will probably be the case for the next two or three weeks going into October, and the lightly raced pair, Leading Horse and Floral Spur, did enough in the third event to suggest a win is near.
Leading Horse had one run as a two-year-old when he was slow to jump, struck some interference in the early stages, but still made good ground behind New Asia Sunrise in a griffin race last July over 1,200m, while Floral Spur's first run was a plain effort getting back in the field behind Diamond King on opening day this season at 1,200m.
Out to 1,400m this time, both showed improvement, racing further forward in the early part of the race then they both came to give the favourite Born To Win a real scare at the 200m.
Ultimately, Born To Win prevailed and the pair had to settle for second and third on Saturday but, as the least-experienced runners in the race, they will be the ones open to improvement.
