It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to join in with John Size’s young horses but it is a sure path to finding coming winners and Volitation joined the queue of Size Private Purchase Griffins ready to win when he finished third to Confucius Spirit on Wednesday night.

Every season, Size’s prospects are underpinned by how his PPGs perform and this term they have been excellent already with the likes of Momentum Lucky, Mr Stunning and others, and there are more to come yet.

On a night when it was difficult to find many horses worth following from the Happy Valley meeting, three-year-old Volitation stood out.

He was underwhelming on debut at Sha Tin but did display some speed before weakening to 10th but his Happy Valley effort was much better. On Wednesday night, he showed pace out of the gates to sit second, outside the leader’s heels, then battled on for the minor placing.

Even in his trials, Volitation had looked a horse who will improve race by race and, being a son of the Melbourne Cup winner Shocking, with some added distance as he matures.

That he has the early speed he has shown at both 1,200m runs augurs well for his future as he is going to have good tactical abilities when he gets out in trip.

Volitation may prove to be a better horse next season but he still looks a horse with winning prospects from now on in Class Four.

Elsewhere on the card, Monsieur Mogok may not be the most reliable galloper going around but his performance behind Wealthy Fortune was a nice statement of how well he’s going and he should find a race shortly.

He isn’t going to win a string of races but the Tony Millard-trained gelding did a good job for fifth to Wealthy Fortune in a race that was overwhelmingly speed-oriented.

The first four across the line were in the first four positions for the whole race once the field settled down, but Monsieur Mogok was the horse making ground from the rear and he can win something more truly run in the coming weeks.