Teetan and Ting could make a winning Happy Valley team
– Karis Teetan is hoping to jump aboard the Jimmy Ting Koon-ho winning train at just the right moment when he takes a rare ride for the first-year trainer at Happy Valley today.
While the pair has 29 individual winners between them this season, they have combined for just one ride in total, earlier in the season.
Teetan will take the ride on Trendiful in Race 4, the Class Five Lyric Ace Handicap over 1200m after he was beaten as odds-on favourite last start with Derek Leung Ka-chun in the saddle at Happy Valley.
Ting has enjoyed a phenomenal start to his training career with 11 winners from his first 37 runners at an incredible strike
Hong Kong
rate of 30 percent.
While such a high strike rate will be unsustainable over the course of the season, Teetan said he expected Trendiful to turn around his first-up disappointment.
“I gave him a piece of work over 800m. The horse feels like he’s flying, he’s in good condition,” he said.
Top of Form Trendiful is expected to set the pace in the race with a wide draw in barrier nine more than likely forcing Teetan to move forward.
However Teetan’s best chance of the meeting could come on another horse expected to start as favourite, the Tony Cruz-trained Blitzing in Race 6, the Class Four Windicator Handicap, also over 1200m.
This horse has been heavily worked already this season and will be chalking up his fourth start in just seven weeks.
Teetan was able to win his last start on the horse at Happy Valley two weeks ago when he nosed out Ting’s horse Applause.
“I was surprised with how much speed he had out of the gate so all together I think it was a pretty good win,” he said.
While he was forced to jump from barrier 11 last start, Teetan will be afforded a much more comfortable beginning from gate 1 today.
“He is jumping from a good gate so he is definitely going to save more energy and of course I expect him to be in a similar position [leading],” he said.
“I think he can still progress and improve, he gave me a really good feel last time.
“He has got some good, natural speed and still gives a kick in the straight, so I think we will learn a lot from this.” Happy Valley (HK) Wed Race 1 @ 13:15
The bulk of Teetan’s 18 wins this season have come via Cruz, with the pair striking up a strong partnership.
They have combined 20 times already for eight wins after Cruz used Teetan just 42 times in over four years before that.
“It’s a great opportunity to work with Tony, he is a very good trainer, and a very good adviser too,” he said. “But to ride his horses, and he has some very good ones, you have horses underneath you that are going to be able to perform.”
Teetan will also ride Money Winner, Cloud Nine, Multimax and Daring Fit today. Of these Cloud Nine, in Race 2, looks to have the best chance of finishing in the money. -