Patience is a virtue that trainer Benno Yung knows well. On Sunday (29 April) at Sha Tin, his Champions Day hopes will rest squarely on the fulfilment of his steady nurturing of a late-maturing galloper with a Group 1 heritage – Pingwu Spark, a great-grandson of a Juddmonte legend.
Yung, a journeyman apprentice jockey in the early 1980s, worked through the stable block grades for more than a quarter of a century, progressing to the role of assistant trainer at the feet of that master of composed restraint, John Size. He matured to licensed trainer aged 54.
More than four and a half years on from his first runner, Yung’s patient approach to the strapping Pingwu Spark will see the five-year-old take his place as a solid option in the HK$18 million Champions Mile – 11 months, 10 races, five wins and a last-start Group 2 placing since the grey gelding’s Hong Kong debut.
“Actually, at the start he was not easy to train,” Yung said of the New Zealand import, a winner of one from two in the land of the long white cloud back in the southern hemisphere spring of 2016.
“It took some time to get him ready for Hong Kong racing but once we got him to where he needed to be he showed that he’s a good horse.”
Pingwu Spark’s racing weight is north of 1300lb. When the hulking gelding arrived in Yung’s yard, the handler was careful about how he developed his charge’s fitness, working from February of last year to arrive at his race debut on 4 June weighing a relatively lean 1295lb.