Reigning champion trainer John Moore is normally one of the fast beginners on the trainer's roster and couldn't remember having had so few runners at this stage of the new season after Sure Peace broke the ice for him at Sha Tin.

Part of Joao Moreira's five-timer, Sure Peace settled back in his usual style then rounded up his Class Four rivals from the 300m mark to go clear before holding the late finish of Elegance Klammer (Brett Prebble) to win by a neck.

It was a win that was unremarkable in most ways, except for the fact it was only Moore's fifth runner for the season and his runners still had not hit double figures for the term when the fifth card of the season ended.

"It's unusual, certainly, this is probably the least runners I've had up to this point in many seasons, perhaps ever, but I had to push many of them right to the end of the last season winning the championship and then we had a shorter summer break this time," Moore said. "I usually like to put seven or eight weeks of work in them before going back to the races with them so I've had to be more patient bringing the horses back this season or they wouldn't have had a chance to rest at all."

Moore said the pattern was going to continue in the next week or two as well and his first Happy Valley runner this season is still to come.

"We've nothing for the Happy Valley meeting again this Wednesday, so that will be three meetings there that I've missed completely," he said. "But there's no hurry. My team isn't really going to get firing properly until we get into October and then we'll start to get the numbers up again."

Sure Peace was one of the pleasant surprises for Moore last season, finding his niche on the all-weather track to win a Class Five in good style after he had looked close to having a hopeless case of 'the slows' on the turf tracks.

"Early on it didn't look like he'd win a race but he's another Tale Of the Cat horse who has found his place on this surface. He's won today at the bottom of Class Four and I think he's got a turn of foot that can win him a couple more in this grade before the handicapper will get hold of him," said Moore after the gelding's second victory on the dirt.

"When we bought him, we thought he'd grow into a similar body type to Flagship Shine - by the same stallion and he liked the dirt even though he only got one chance on it before his rating was too high - but Sure Peace is still quite a narrow-girthed horse. When I looked at the body weights, they said his weight was up a bit this season but for the life of me I can't see where he's put the pounds on."