Super Hong Kong probably is not how Tony Millard has felt about the city during the toughest season of his career, but that is the name of the galloper whose shock success at Sha Tin on Sunday snapped the South African trainer’s 102-starter losing run.

Sent off the $20.8 eighth elect for the Class Four TVB Tung Wah Celebrity Show Handicap (2,000m), Super Hong Kong burst through between Go Go Sixteen and Management Folks inside the final furlong to hit the front and defeat the latter from David Hall’s in-form yard by one and a quarter lengths.

Super Hong Kong carried Matthew Chadwick to his first win since he returned on February 8 following eight weeks out, but the five-year-old stayer’s victory meant so much more to Millard, who had been absent from the winner’s enclosure since Intrepid Winner triumphed at Happy Valley on November 9.

“He’s come well, he’s dropped down in the handicap and it was the ideal race for him. His preparation went very well and we just needed a bit of luck,” said Millard of Super Hong Kong, who had won by two lengths over the same course and distance off a mark two points lower in February of last year.

A part of the Hong Kong racing scene since 1999, Millard began his 24th consecutive campaign in the city with 700 wins under his belt. Incredibly, Super Hong Kong’s victory only lifted his tally to 703.

“Unfortunately, it’s been very tough this season. In 37 years of racing [globally], we’ve never had it like this. It’s just one of those things. Our stable has been caught in the perfect storm,” Millard said.

“We had Covid, and we didn’t buy. Then we lacked the young horses coming through. We’ve just got the old horses. We’re racing six, seven and eight-year-old horses, and it’s very difficult to win.

“You need the new stock, especially with the new trainers coming in. They took a lot of the permits and the transfers. So, of course, we never had any stock to work with besides horses which we’d won races for the last three seasons.

“We’re open for transfers. Please people, we’re back. We definitely know what we’re doing, and I think our luck has turned. We’re looking forward to a good end to the season and may we have many more winners.”

Although Millard’s British Group Two-winning Hong Kong debutant Wings Of War finished a six-and-a-half-length 11th in the Class Three TVB Wai Yin Association Special Handicap (1,200m), his Class Four TVB Po Leung Kuk Gala Spectacular Handicap (1,600m) runner Gold Tack almost shed his maiden tag on just his fourth competitive appearance.

Ridden by Hugh Bowman, Gold Tack finished a half-length second to Hall-prepared Flying Mojito.

While Millard remains anchored to the bottom of this term’s trainers’ premiership with one win fewer than Me Tsui Yu-sak, the indignity of owning Hong Kong’s longest losing sequence among the training fraternity now sits with Tsui, who has saddled 100 losers in a row after experiencing a couple of defeats on Sunday.