The Champion Griffin award traditionally celebrates the most promising youngsters on the rise in Hong Kong, and last season’s award recipient Premiere certainly showed himself to be on the right track after taking the Class 2 Chinese Recreation Club Challenge Cup Handicap (1000m) – one of five winners for Joao Moreira on Saturday’s Sha Tin card.

John Size-trained Premiere (116lb) had won three races over the Happy Valley 1000m last season as a three-year-old to take the title, awarded to the best of the season’s young gallopers not to have raced pre-import. However, he had remained winless over the Sha Tin straight 1000m from five attempts.

On Saturday, though, he bounced straight to the lead and was not for catching, holding solid Class 2 benchmarks Archippus (133lb) and Country Melody (123lb) at bay by a length and a quarter.

“It was good to see him do it at Sha Tin,” Moreira said. “We knew he could do it at Happy Valley but there was still that query about the Sha Tin 1000m. However, he feels like a different horse now, he’s strengthened up a bit – his trials had indicated that – and that will take him a long way.

“When he started the race, his first step was awkward, and he also shifted out a bit and bumped the horse on his inside and got a little bit unbalanced. However, once he balanced up and got out to the lead, I could feel he was going to finish off because he was just travelling so strongly but kindly, too.”



Last season’s Champion Griffin Premiere wins the Class 2 Chinese Recreation Challenge Cup Handicap (1000m) for Joao Moreira and John Size, picture Hong Kong Jockey Club

It was a first win this season for reigning champion handler Size, who is seeking to win his 10th trainers’ title and his third in a row.

Premiere was one of two promising four-year-olds that Moreira was booked to ride at Saturday’s meeting. The other, Top Beautiful (120lb), was sent out a 1.6 favourite in the Class 3 Tailorbird Handicap (1000m) and faced a tough battle before prevailing by a short-head over Tony Cruz’s Beauty Master (132lb) to remain unbeaten from two starts.

“That was a better effort than it looked,” said Top Beautiful’s trainer Chris So. “The other day, he obviously won very easily but today he had to work for it, and I think there was merit in it too. He was up in class, which is not easy for a young horse, and the first two horses have come right away from the others so I think the form will be good.

“He’s a big horse so I will have to be careful with him but I think that was exciting again.”

Moreira earlier won two all-weather track races atop Frankie Lor-trained Diamond Friends in the Class 5 Lark Handicap (1650m) and Gran Master for Peter Ho in the Class 4 Shrike Handicap (1650m), while Francis Lui’s Diamond Mysterious was the middle pin of the five-timer.