Blizzard’s preparations for Sunday’s G1 Sprinters Stakes (1200m) saw the Hong Kong contender in light exercise beneath leaden skies at Nakayama Racecourse this morning, Thursday, 28 September.

The gelding met teeming rain as he stepped onto the soggy dirt track at around 7.40am. Trainer Ricky Yiu’s charge jigged and pranced for a few strides, ears pricked, eager perhaps to repeat the fast work of the previous morning. Instead, the six-year-old completed one lap at a slow, metronomic lob under assistant Stanley Wong.

The wet band is forecast to move away today, leaving dry weather and fast conditions through Sunday.

“He’s ready to go, he wanted to get on with things today. He’s more powerful and looks good,” Wong said. “He had a gallop yesterday, that’s why he was on his toes a little bit, but that’s normal for him, he knows the race is coming.”

Yiu was not on-site, having returned to Hong Kong after watching big-race pilot Gerald Mosse work Blizzard through 1200m of Nakayama’s turf on Wednesday morning. The trainer’s plan, according to Wong, is to up the ante a little over the next two days.

“It was very slow work today. Tomorrow and Saturday we will do something faster on the dirt again – no gallop, a fast canter,” he said.

“Yesterday he galloped 1200 (metres). It was just to teach the horse something about the track. Gerald Mosse let him go from the 600 (metres) and the boss was happy.”

Before Yiu jetted back to Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon, he told the JRA’s media team: “The horse had a very good gallop before he came to Japan and until now we just wanted to keep him happy with slow and light work. I asked the jockey to warm him up, gradually increase speed and give him a good blow in the stretch.”

On Sunday, Blizzard will attempt to become the third Hong Kong-trained horse to win the Sprinters Stakes and the first since 2010 when the Yiu-trained Ultra Fantasy saw off the best that Japan could muster. Silent Witness landed the prize for Hong Kong, too, in 2005.

Blizzard has settled well at Nakayama’s racecourse stables: “He’s been no trouble,” Wong said. “He’s a very straightforward horse to deal with, he’s easy to control.”

The Hong Kong Jockey Club will simulcast Sunday’s Sprinters Stakes, scheduled to jump at 2.40pm Hong Kong time, during the 10-race Sha Tin card.