A light weight and tactical talent are the advantages over his main rivals that should see John Moore-trained Tianhuang successful in the Wayfoong Centenary Bowl (1,200m) at Sha Tin tonight.

The four-year-old's season was to have started in September but Tianhuang (Joao Moreira) had to be withdrawn with a blood abnormality. Moore gave him some time off but Tianhuang has been back to the trials twice lately and given every indication he is ready to resume a promising career.

Tianhuang was checked at the start on debut and still ran well enough on turf but simply jumped out of the ground when switched to the dirt second time out in July.

He trotted up in Class Four and finds himself in Class Three now and without a race for four months but his pluses are the handicaps and the probability that he is going to be in front of Happy Surveys (Zac Purton) and Ultimate Glory (Ben So Tik-hung).

Moore had to apply for special permission to change the gear on a last-start winner and stewards allowed him to swap blinkers for cowled pacifiers on Tianhuang, who had resented kickback on the dirt in a trial in October. How much dirt he'll have kicked back at him tonight is another question.

While he is not sizzling early, Tianhuang still maps to be in the first three or four in a race with readymade leaders in Multimax (Alvin Ng Ka-chun) and Borntoachieve, but the pace drops away after that. Newcomer A Beautiful showed speed in Australia but has been ridden quietly in trials here.

Meanwhile, Happy Surveys is drawn in but yet to show the early speed to really use gate one and ditto Ultimate Glory from gate two.

Unless someone has a brain snap, the leaders shouldn't be going that fast to the turn, where Tianhuang will be right on the back of them and ready to put some real estate between himself and the opposition as they straighten.