Mr Stunning (Exceed and Excel) trialled at Sha Tin on Tuesday morning and appeared to be in fine order as he heads towards December’s LONGINES Hong Kong International Races as defending champion.
Mr Stunning is yet to step into the race-day fray yet this term and is likely to return in the Gr.2 Jockey Club Sprint (1200m) in November.
Heading in off a six-month spell due to an off-fore stress fracture, Mr Stunning had his first trial of the season in Tuesday’s final batch of four. The classy bay cruised around to finish a neck to the fore with jockey Keith Yeung holding onto two handfuls of tight reins.
“He feels really good,” Yeung said of trainer Frankie Lor’s star who clocked 1m 00.14s for the 1050m dirt track hit-out.
“He’s coming back from a long time off and he jumped perfectly, showed good gate speed and travelled lovely just next to the leader. Frankie told me it was his first trial so not to give him too much hard work. I just took him back a little bit in the straight and he was really good.”
Yeung will not be in the plate when Mr Stunning goes to the races. Hugh Bowman is expected to partner the Lor galloper.
Zac Purton rode the gelding to third in the Gr.2 Sprint Cup in April and was the intended rider for an aborted tilt at the Gr.1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize later that month. He will be in opposition should Mr Stunning step out in next month’s Gr.2 and quite possibly again when the worthy star attempts to make history as the first three-time winner of the December sprint feature.
“It’s tough because he’s such a good horse but I made that call,” the champion jockey said.
“I’m riding Regency Legend in that race. It was difficult, you’ve just got to make a decision and I hadn’t been on Mr Stunning’s back so I couldn’t get a feel of how he was going. He’s older now, he hasn’t had just one setback, he’s a had a couple of setbacks in the last couple of seasons and you just start to wonder, when little things keep going wrong, how much longer you’re going to have them for.”
Mr Stunning was purchased by Magus Equine for $250,000 out of Lyndhurst Farm’s 2014 New Zealand Bloodstock’s Premier Yearling Sale draft.
