Heading into Sunday’s season-opening meeting at Sha Tin, most of the thinking around the next Hong Kong success abroad was focused on Ka Ying Rising and The Everest.

Now, however, it’s certainly not out of the question that should the world’s best sprinter win the world’s richest race on turf next month, he’ll be the third Sha Tin-trained galloper to salute overseas in season 2025-26.

Self Improvement’s shock success in the Group Three Korea Sprint (1,200m) at Seoul ensured the city has opened its account abroad for the campaign and Chancheng Glory nearly repeated the dose when second in the Group Three Korea Cup (1,800m) soon after.

There was certainly some sentiment after the races on Sunday night that if the Manfred Man Ka-leung-trained Self Improvement, nothing more than a Class Three performer in Hong Kong, can head offshore and scoop a Group race, then just about anything can happen.

“I really believed they had no chance,” said Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges with a smile when asked about Hong Kong’s Korea runners.

Next cab off the rank is Lucky Sweynesse, who must now be considered a much greater chance of plundering Japan’s Group One Sprinters Stakes (1,200m) at the end of the month than he was heading into the weekend.

Solid but not spectacular in two runs late last season following a lengthy injury-induced absence, Lucky Sweynesse put up his best effort in nearly 18 months when second behind Ka Ying Rising in Sunday’s Class One HKSAR Chief Executive’s Cup (1,200m).

The four-time Group One winner will need to improve again to win an elite-level overseas contest expected to feature the classy Satono Reve, but it’s far from out of the question.

If nothing else, Self Improvement’s victory under a cool Jerry Chau Chun-lok ride is the beginning of what promises to be a big season of travelling for Hong Kong horses and the continuation of a remarkable late-career flourish for Man.

Set to meet the Jockey Club’s then retirement age of 65 at the end of the 2022-23 season, varying degrees of bending and reshaping of the licensing criteria by officials ensured that Man was first allowed to train until he was 66, and then 70.

The 68-year-old is certainly doing his bit to justify the Jockey Club’s decision to keep him around, putting up a career-best 45 wins last season and starting this term in a blaze of glory with his first overseas victory plus a win and three seconds at Sha Tin on Sunday.

If Man were to pull off the improbable with Lucky Sweynesse in Japan, it would be nothing short of extraordinary.

At the other end of the spectrum is Chau. Still only 25 more than five years after being rushed back from Adelaide to fill a hole in the roster, Chau will be hoping to parlay his Korea efforts into greater success at home.

After making an immediate impact with 58 winners in his first full season – a good chunk of which came for his boss Douglas Whyte, for whom he hasn’t had a winner in over three and a half years – Chau has only passed 30 victories once since.

His 23 successes last season were only good enough for a 16th-placed finish in the premiership.

Chau is one of a number of local riders to experience something of a post-apprenticeship lull and churning out 20-something winners a season is far from diabolical.

But he showed with his confident riding in Korea that he’s capable of more and he no doubt landed back in Hong Kong on Monday full of belief that he can compete in the top half of the premiership this season.