The reputation of Real Generous well and truly precedes the infuriatingly slow starter, so when Neil Callan climbed aboard he came prepared with a bag of tricks to ensure the crafty gelding jumped on terms.
And while he may have lost round one, he ensured he won the fight.
The Irishman's preparations meant nothing as Dennis Yip Chor-hong's eight-year-old did his thing and flopped out of the gates, but he still won anyway after being tailed off last.
"It was my first ride on him but Dennis told me he sometimes blows the start, so I thought I was ready for him and warmed him up behind the gates," said Callan, who continued his rich vein of form with a treble. "I could feel him tense up and get himself ready and I thought he'd be right - and then he just stood there."
Yip has given up trying to get inside the head of his miler, claiming the horse had simply become too smart for his good.
"He just walks out of the gates like an old man," Yip said, adding that he would advise owners that pushing Real Generous beyond the first part of this season would be a waste. "This problem isn't getting much better. It might be time to retire him soon."
Punters who took 3.8 about the favourite would have been horrified, but perhaps not surprised, to see Real Generous pull his trademark stunt and spend the early stages of the race detached from the 11-horse field.
Even Callan had given up much hope of making an impact: "He was quite a way off them because they went quite quick the first part and then he got onto the back of the pack and I was thinking he could probably run midfield, I wasn't expecting him to come over the top of them and win. I made sure he knew he was in a race though down the straight - the first part of the race he took for himself, the last part I made sure was for me."
Before Callan completed his big day with Not Listenin'tome's feature sprint win, None Other had added yet another success for the Tony Cruz stable when the Group One-placed import broke through at his 16th local start.
"The fast pace helped him because he's quite one-paced, but he's strong at the 1,400m - the tempo really dragged it out of the others and he just kept going," Callan said.
Cruz had a double after another import who was once highly rated, Dalwari (Vincent Ho Chak-yiu), broke his local duck, but the trainer certainly wasn't getting carried away with either win - especially None Other's apparent turnaround.
"He got a class drop and he got 1,400m - he's not much of a horse," he said.
