Double joy for Teetan on 30th birthday
Reliable Team's battling win in the Class 2 Cochrane Handicap over 1,800m gave jockey Karis Teetan double happiness on his 30th birthday at Happy Valley on Wednesday.
The "Mauritian Magician" had earlier won on Murray's Partners.
"It's nice to get a winner on a special day and I hope the luck can keep going," said Teetan, who has marched to 76 wins for the term, eight short of last season's personal best.
While Murray's Partners made big improvement with a first-time visor, Reliable Team scored with blinkers.
"The blinkers helped a lot," said Teetan. "I trialled Reliable Team a few weeks ago with them on and he trialled nicely. He still looks around a bit and does funny things, so I don't think he'd have won without them tonight.
"I was worried that he was doing a bit too much but, once I got him some cover, he slept straight away. When I pulled him out, he wanted to go next to that horse and he kept fighting him."
Reliable Team, trained by Frankie Lor, has taken his record to five wins from 13 starts.
Teetan's success on Murray's Partners in section one of the Class 4 Wyndham Handicap over 1,650m continued the late-season upsurge of Dennis Yip, whose stable had seven wins in May.
The four-year-old broke his maiden at the 13th attempt, having dropped to a mark of 40 from a debut rating of 52.
Zac Purton continued to kick ahead in the jockeys' premiership, with a winner on the Francis Lui-trained Highland Fortune.
The Australian is now five winners ahead of Brazilian Joao Moreira, who drew a blank. Both had a full book of nine rides. The score is now 128-123. - HKJC
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