Caspar Fownes celebrated a pleasant surprise at Happy Valley last night when Somelovefromabove held on in a thrilling finish under the lights to record his first win in Hong Kong.
While Fownes was delighted to see his four-year-old prevail by a nose in the third race of the day, the trainer said he initially thought he was ruing a second narrow defeat for his stable in quick succession, having watched Glory Cloud finish a short head back in second in the opening contest of the night.
“I thought we’d lost actually to tell you the truth, especially we got beat in the first one with Glory Cloud,” Fownes told The Standard. “They were coming strongly at him.”
Somelovefromabove, bought by Fownes’ son Ryan as a yearling in New Zealand, had failed to live up to the trainer’s expectations in his first five starts. But, the lightly-raced galloper took a big step forward under Matthew Chadwick after he finished 10th at Sha Tin over 1400 meters at the end of September to fend off a host of fast-finishing challengers.
“He’s a nice horse and he’s been a bit disappointing,” Fownes said. “He hasn’t had much experience, but we felt that he had quite a bit of upside when we got him from New Zealand. It’s taken a few runs but he’s won now and I’m so happy for the owners.
Chadwick capitalized on his inside draw to settle one off the lead on the rail in the early stages of the Class 4 contest over 1200m. After travelling powerfully turning for home, Somelovefromabove kept on well enough to deny Flow Water Flow, who flew home on debut under Hugh Bowman.
“Hopefully he can go on with it,” Fownes said. “He’s got a lot more to give but he’s still green and he doesn’t really know what to do yet. He’s a lovely, scopey horse but he just needs to toughen up and become a man.”
Elsewhere at Happy Valley, James McDonald started his evening in perfect fashion when he returned to the winner’s enclosure aboard his first two rides of the night, Legend Star and Ocean Impact.
The Danny Shum Chap-shing-trained Legend Star defeated Fownes’ Glory Cloud by short head, while Ocean Impact recorded his first win in Hong Kong by a neck.
