The new season in Hong Kong is still a few weeks away, but the build up began in earnest this morning with the first barrier trials at the Conghua training facility. Clearly, any from from a Barrier trial needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Some horses are there for fitness, others for experience or education and as a result it would be very dangerous to assume that every horse was running on their merits. However, there is something to be gained from these Barrier trials, especially in the early season, as they can be an excellent guide to those horses who are being readied for the opening races of the new campaign. I wrote a similar piece on the opening day of the Barrier trials last year, which highlighted a notable performance from Medic Elite. He is a relatievley low grade performer, but he enjoyed his best ever season last time around, winning twice including an early season handicap at Happy Valley in September. For what it's worth, he produced a similar performance today and could be worth noting once again, but there were a couple of others who also look worthy of note.
Viva Chaleur was an all the way winner today, producing the best time figure to go with it. He is a 13-race maiden in Hong Kong, but the handicapper is beginning to relent and he begins the new campaign on a career low mark of 64. On today's evidence, he is close to peak fitness already and if he were to get a favourable draw on his seasonal debut, he could certainly be of interest.
The other horse that I have added to my notes is Soaring Bronco. He didn't set the world alight in 5 races last season, but he is still learning on the job and he looked to be a much more polished performer when staying on well to beat Life of Stone and Super Glory this morning. He has an official rating of 44, so it is fair to say that he is likely to spend the season competing in Class 4 and 5 races, but he has been doing some nice trackwork with Viva Chaleur at Conghua in the last 10-days and he looks to be a horse to stick with as he improves.
Here are the full results and speed figures from this mornings trials:
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