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A double for Zac Purton at Sha Tin on Saturday took the Australian jockey to his half century of winners for the season and consolidated his lead over Brett Prebble in the race for second in the jockeys' championship behind Douglas Whyte.
Photo by HKJC
Purton's upset wins on the David Ferraris-trained Strathtay at 42-1 and Manfred Man's Samadhi at 54-1 has given him an eight win lead over Prebble.
"I think 50 wins or more has to be regarded as a pretty decent season," Purton said.
"I didn't quite get there two years ago, then I got 53 last year and I've still got plenty of time left for this to be my best season."
Purton has improved his tally in each of his five terms in Hong Kong and he could be in a much better position this season if he had not incurred three careless riding bans.
Samadhi was an Adelaide two-year-old winner and had not been closer than 10th in his four runs in HK.
"His form looked nothing on paper but Manfred actually gave the owners a small push before the race to say that he thought he would run a better race," Purton said.