The John Size four-year-old train is under way after Amazing Kids won brilliantly first-up from the break and he looks the horse to beat again in the Lukfook Jewellery Cup (1,400m) at Sha Tin today.
This Class Two looks a match race on paper between Amazing Kids (Joao Moreira) and Packing Pins (Zac Purton) so tactics will play a role, but gate one and a small weight pull look like good starts for the Size runner.
Amazing Kids isn't the best of Size's four-year-olds - that comes at the end of the month when Thewizardofoz returns - but he has a good dose of quality about him and could not have been impressive winning over 1,200m first time out this campaign.
He was somewhat flattered by getting a perfect Moreira ride with a light weight and a tempo to suit, but punters who saw Moreira let the gelding go to the line under his own steam in the final 100m to thrash handy Strathmore couldn't help but think they had seen something very good. Moreira must have thought so as he has jumped off Packing Pins to ride the Size horse.
What will probably encourage his detractors is that Amazing Kids has won both starts at 1,200m, but none of his three over 1,400m. That is a niggling question mark, but there have been good excuses in certainly two of those three 1,400m defeats, especially in the final race of last season when Amazing Kids might well have beaten highly rated stablemate Sun Jewellery without the trouble he found through the event.
Gate one gives Moreira the opportunity to let Amazing Kids relax early, a key point in both of his 1,200m wins, and the pace should be at least even.
With Jack Wong Ho-nam on Precision King, the seven-year-old carries 108 pounds, and it's difficult to imagine that connections won't want to use that handicap advantage on a horse who leads as his normal pattern anyway.
Multivictory is also a regular frontrunner at 1,400m, so there is sufficient speed to ensure a true contest just from these two and it could be even faster if any of Kabayan, Same World or Dr Good Habit press forward.
Packing Pins is a serious threat, however, with no doubts at all about 1,400m - a distance over which he has won four times - and he too won first time out this season with ease.
In some of his wins, he has overcome difficulties to score and that must always be respected as an indication that there is more in the locker when he needs to call on it and the bottom of the five-year-old hasn't been found yet.
