First season trainer Jimmy Ting’s flying start to the racing year continued on Sunday when he claimed a double in the first five races, all won by local trainers, at Sha Tin. He now boasts 16 winners for the racing year which takes him to the top of the trainer’s table, two ahead of Tony Millard. 

Ting is certainly making a great fist of emulating Frankie Lor’s remarkable first season numbers last year. After the corresponding meeting in 2017, Lor was atop the premiership with 19 winners.

“The results have been great,’ Ting said, ‘I didn’t expect to have this many winners at this stage of the season but the horses are happy and healthy so I’m very happy. I thought the two horses today came with good chances to win.” His winners had support starting at 6.1 and 5.4 respectively.   

Ting’s double came with horses having their first run for the fledgling trainer - he  won the Kate Tokyo Handicap with Diamond Master and the Suisse Programme Handicap with Smiling Pride -  but he asserted he’s done nothing dramatically different with them. 

“I’ve just been patient with them. I’m happy to wait until I’m confident their health is excellent, they’re in great shape and ready to go,” he said. 

They’ve also come at an extraordinarily good strike rate of 30 per cent with 75 per cent of them having been ridden by local jockeys. “I’m local and I want to support the local jockeys, it’s as simple as that,” he said. 

Keith Yeung and Umberto Rispoli were aboard Ting’s winners and Sa Sa Ladies’ Purse Day proved fruitful for each who doubled up on the program.

Yeung won the opening two races to take his season’s tally to five while Rispoli, who has endured a frustrating run of minor placegetters, also won on Chiu Chow Kid in the Kose Cosmeport Handicap to double his tally for the season.