John Moore believes the very best of Not Listenin'tome won't ever be seen but 12 months of work and patience has been enough to get the gelding back after serious illness and "95 per cent right" was sufficient to put a hole in most of Hong Kong's best sprinters in the Group Three National Day Cup.
"He got that very bad throat infection - I guess it was around this time last year that he was in trouble - and because of that I don't think we'll ever see the horse he was going to be," Moore said after Not Listenin'tome gave Neil Callan a treble on the day and a live chance in the big sprints going forward.
"Last season, he won a race here but still wasn't quite right. He was a work in progress and I think now I've got him back to 95 per cent of himself, I always said he'd make it into the top two or three sprinters here and he's beaten most of them today. The only one not here was Aerovelocity and now we'll meet him on the 25th of this month and Able Friend will line up in that, too, just for good measure."
For Callan, the result came out of the blue, with the Irishman saying he had expected to be riding Peniaphobia this season.
"That was my expectation when I came back in August but when I saw Joao Moreira trial both this one and Peniaphobia, I figured he would be on Peniaphobia, so I drove John mad to put me on this one," said Callan.
"He's a plane. He was able to stay with them early, then he had an instant change of gears when I asked him. He's got a tonne of class about him and the great thing going forward to the internationals is that I think this bloke will be better at 1,200m.
"He was good today at 1,000m but fresh and with that freshness off him, the extra 200m looks even better."
The brilliant early speed of Amber Sky and Rad was expected to burn off most rivals in the early stages, but Moore for one was not surprised that they couldn't shake off Not Listenin'tome.
"I told Neil before the race to hold on because this horse can really begin and he's really quick," Moore said.
"I was happy for him to stay with those horses early - if you steady and come back off them, suddenly they're gone and you're three lengths behind them and they've got momentum on you. He stayed with them and then kicked."
Dubai Golden Shaheen runner-up in March Super Jockey split the Moore runners at the finish, as Charles The Great ran into third and Frederick Engels fourth, and his trainer Tony Millard was delighted.
"First run for six months - if anything, the break looks like it has made him an even better horse," said Millard, who also saddled up Golden Harvest for fifth.
"It's on to the internationals with both of them - Golden Harvest ran fifth in the Hong Kong Sprint last year off a bad gate. Anything can happen with horses like this."
Anything did happen with some of the other favourites - David Hall-trained Rad finished second last with a trachea full of blood, last year's winner Bundle Of Joy managed only ninth, Amber Sky finished behind both of them in last and Tony Cruz-trained Peniaphobia could do not better than seventh.
"I'm not too disappointed," said Cruz. "You look at the finish, all the horses at the top of the weights struggled. I'm sure he will improve on that."
