David Hall is hoping he has another Hit A Home Run or Solar Great on his hands with Bamboo Dance after the one-time cellar dweller continued his astronomical rise through the ratings with a fourth straight win.
Hall has made a habit of salvaging the careers of troubled stable transfers stationed in the lower grades and Bamboo Dance's turnaround is the latest example of the Australian trainer's Midas touch.
Bamboo Dance came back to Hall, after a previous stint, midway through last season, his rating bottoming out at 18 - two below the season-ending cut-off for enforced retirement.
Three straight wins to end last term, all with Joao Moreira aboard, put Bamboo Dance back where he started in Class Four, and the Magic Man was on board again for an emphatic first-up victory over a mile for the eight-year-old.
"He showed everyone he was in the zone and flying last season and he has carried it on today, he just keeps doing it," Hall said, the trainer having previously overseen the immediate transformation of transfers Hit A Home Run, who put together four wins and a 35-point rise, and Solar Great, who won five straight wins and rocketed 47 ratings points to 101 a season earlier.
"If you said last season he could win in Class Three last season people would have laughed at you," he said. "But it was certainly a progressive type of win today and I'm sure the handicapper will think that too."
Bamboo Dance is far from the typical patch-up job and Hall has always pointed to the chestnut's soundness as being a rare case of a Class Five horse with very few physical ailments.
"He is a funny story, he is eight years old and maybe he has finally found life in Hong Kong is not too bad," he said.
"He is a healthy horse and that's in his favour. By the time most horses get to eight here, they've probably got a few issues, especially those in Class Five."
For Moreira, the win was a rare ray of light on an otherwise dark day for the Brazilian, who was sent out odds-on favourite in the Jockey Challenge but came up with a sole victory from a seemingly strong book of rides. Yet for his part in the Bamboo Dance tale of redemption, Moreira was deflecting all credit to Hall.
"It's nothing to do with me - what David has done with this horse is quite amazing," he said.
Moreira had been slated to ride for four straight days later this week after taking bookings in Australia on the two days between the Sha Tin fixtures set for Thursday and Sunday, but the withdrawal of Godolphin three-year-old Furnaces from Friday's Moir Stakes at Moonee Valley means he will get a day's respite.
