Ten meetings, 102 races and four wins separating first from second. The trainers’ championship is still there to be won, and Joao Moreira has a major say in how it will be decided.
Moreira’s return as Caspar Fownes’ retained rider has been central to the four-time champion trainer’s late-season push. Before the Brazilian came back to Hong Kong, the Fownes stable was winning roughly once every eight or nine runners. Since then, that figure has improved to close to one winner every seven starters.
Happy Valley has still been the foundation of Fownes’ season. He was already operating at 18.6 percent at the city track before Moreira’s return, but that has edged up to 20 percent since April 8.
The bigger improvement has arguably come at Sha Tin. It is still not spectacular, but Fownes’ strike rate there has climbed from 6.2 percent before April 8 to 9.2 percent since.
Moreira and Fownes will combine with seven runners at Happy Valley tonight, several holding obvious claims. Decision Link heads the list as he chases back-to-back Class 4 wins over 1,650 meters.
Decision Link has been a stable-transfer success story for Fownes since arriving from his former assistant Chris So Wai-yin in early February. Moreira has ridden the four-year-old in his past four starts for two wins and a second, and believes the in-form galloper has more to give.
“I know he has had to come up from Class 5. He dropped into the grade and won straight away, but he’s appreciating the extra distance since Caspar extended him,” Moreira told The Standard at trackwork on Tuesday morning. “He’s in good form, he’s healthy and, really, to me it’s not going to be a surprise if he wins again. He’s a very easy horse to ride, loves Happy Valley, everything is straightforward.”
Moreira was left ruing consecutive wide draws for Silver Spurs, who will jump from barrier 12 as he chases a third win this season in one of two Class 4 contests over 1,200m on the night.
Still, Moreira was encouraged by the way the five-year-old performed under similar circumstances at Sha Tin last start.
Drawn widest in barrier 14, Moreira had to make use of Silver Spurs early before working to the front near the 800m mark. He stuck on for second, and that form has since held up: third-placed Polar Patch filled the same spot again on Sunday, while Leading Dragon, who weakened after sitting on Silver Spurs’ tail throughout, came out and won.
“He’s a very speedy type of horse. He’s got a lot of good gate speed, which is useful for Happy Valley, especially as we are racing on the C+3 course,” Moreira said. “He’s healthy, he’s in form and, even if the draw is not that good, I still believe he is capable of running a good race.”
That Silver Spurs ride came at a cost for Moreira, who earned a one-day careless riding suspension for his effort and was hit with another one-day ban on Sunday.
Moreira will miss Saturday's Sha Tin meeting and the July 1 public holiday fixture, leaving Fownes without his retained rider for two key cards. In a championship race with almost no margin for error, that is another late-season twist.
Fownes has 61 wins and leads Mark Newnham and Danny Shum Chap-shing by four, with Francis Lui Kin-wai ten wins adrift of the lead on 51.
