New Zealand-bred gelding Tangmere (NZ) (Frankel) ground home for Zac Purton in the Class 4 Ma Tau Kok Handicap (1650m) at Happy Valley on Wednesday night.
The five-year-old rewarded a patient group of connections as he saluted for the first time since his arrival in Hong Kong nearly two years ago.
“You just never give up in Hong Kong – we’ve seen it time and again, I’ve taken over many horses that have been 30 and zip and then they’ve got a record of five or six wins – now it happens, they arrive here at the top of Class 3 and it sort of takes time for them to settle in especially if they’ve got issues,” trainer Casper Fownes said.
Trained by Chris Waller pre-import, Tangmere got his Australian maiden out of the way at Randwick in February 2018, but had to wait over two years before he would enter the winner’s arch again.
“He had an infection after we castrated him – so he was out for quite a while and then he had a few niggling problems as you have every now and again, but let’s hope that’s behind us and hopefully we can go forward and produce another winner for the owners – I’m very happy for them they’ve been patient so they deserve that win,” Fownes said.
Bred by Pencarrow Thoroughbreds, Tangmere was purchased out of their 2016 New Zealand Bloodstock Premier draft for $1,300,000.
