Francis Lui Kin-wai marched closer to the top of the trainers’ premiership with a treble at Sha Tin on Sunday, headlined by Thunder Kit’s gutsy success in the Class Three Hong Kong Lions Cup (1,200m).

The 2023-24 champion trainer secured his title in the most dramatic of circumstances, knocking Pierre Ng Pang-chi off the top in the final race of the season, and he may need similar magic in this year’s ultra-competitive race.

Lui has done most of his winning this campaign on the Sha Tin turf and his favourite venue helped him storm to within four wins of championship leader Danny Shum Chap-shing, who sits on 54 wins for the campaign.

“I’ll keep trying my best for the championship but it’s hard – it’s very competitive and there’s plenty of time to go,” Lui said. “It’s getting exciting, the championship is so competitive, and I will just try to keep my horses performing.”

Thunder Kit, a one-time winner at Oakbank in Australia pre-import, had been steadily progressing in each of his five local starts and took another big leap forward to shed his Hong Kong maiden under Vincent Ho Chak-yiu.

Settled towards the rear with just three horses behind him, his backers would have been sweating as Ho began his challenge through the middle of the pack.

The Rich Enuff galloper showed a good turn of foot to scythe his way through the field and collared Celestial Hero with 50m to spare, before holding off the fast-finishing Chicken Dinner to score by half a length.

“He’s still green, you know. Also, inside the gates sometimes he’s a bit nervous. But the more he races, the more he matures,” Lui said. “If you look at his form, he seems to have potential because he did not race much in Australia.

“It looks like he’ll get over more distance, like 1,400m, maybe in the future. At the moment of course I will keep him at 1,200m.”

It was the second leg of a race-to-race double for Lui, who also watched the potentially smart Superb Spirit make it second time lucky in the first section of the Class Four Luk Wu Handicap (1,200m).

A good fourth on debut under Zac Purton, he showed the benefit of that run by travelling sweetly behind the trio of leaders. When asked, he let down well in the straight and came with a surging late run to claim Lucrative Eight and Island Buddy.

Lui is building quite the arsenal for next season’s Classic Series and this promising three-year-old could be another with four-year-old series aspirations.

“He’s a horse nice horse, in the future I think he will stay further as he has a big stride. Hopefully he can be a Classic Mile horse in time,” Lui said. “He can still run a few more times this season, he eats up well and is taking his racing well.”

The win was the second leg of a double on the day for Purton, who also rode Lahore to success in the Class Four Cheung Shan Handicap (1,000m).

Things got even better for Lui later on the card, with Meaningful Dragon overcoming stall 14 to land the first section of the Class Four Lung Fu Shan Handicap (1,400m).

Rousted from the gates by Luke Ferraris, the son of Caravaggio managed to take a sit outside the leader Proud Box and as they turned for home, he had the leader in his sights.

Things were made more difficult, however, when Ferraris dropped his whip past the 350m pole, but it made no difference as Meaningful Dragon gritted his teeth and took over 50m out, before holding off the fast-finishing Quick Contribution to win by a head.

“I told Luke to be positive on him, because of the track bias. He likes to fight, it doesn’t matter whether he is two-wide, three-wide, he keeps trying and fighting,” Lui said.

“He had a lot of problems, last season he was struggling to even finish his barrier trials – he kept tailing off. We just kept trying and he steadily improved.”

The treble helped Lui jump to fourth on the championship table, trailing Shum, Mark Newnham (52 wins) and Caspar Fownes (51).

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