Ng took his season's tally to 17 with the double, comprising Lucky Red (Whyte) and Master Cristo (Alex Lai Hoi- wing), and five of his winners have arrived from his last 28 runners.

"Actually, I worked Lucky Red the other morning and when I got off him I said to Gary the work had been great and it was too bad that he would bump into Wasabisabi today or I'd be pretty confident," Whyte said after Lucky Red had managed to relegate the odds-on favourite Wasabisabi to third.

"In his work, I held him together and then let him go and he quickened well, and I rode him exactly the same way in the race. The problem with Lucky Red is that if you let him run, he'll just run until he stops, but held together, he can give you a kick. I think the soft ground played a big part for him but he really exploded when I asked him."

Ng said Lucky Red had been performing on his nerves earlier but was calming down now and has some scope for the future.

"He has that brilliant speed but he was getting very hot before his races, especially since the day he ran second at his second start," Ng said. "He was getting worse every time - the jockey would know even before he went on to the track that he was no chance of winning because Lucky Red was getting so edgy before the race."

Whyte later tumbled from Real Surprise at the 1,200m mark of the sixth event after clipping heels as he took the gelding towards the rail but quickly bounced up again to ride the remaining races, in which he was winless. Ng carried on the good work with Master Cristo leading throughout the last event.

"He enjoyed the soft ground and has won on the wet in New Zealand but I just had to keep him well away from the inside because there was a lot of surface water there by the time we raced," said jockey Lai.