Like a mythical king and his mighty steed, Me Tsui Yu-sak and Arthur’s Kingdom are on the march.

It mightn’t be a long march and it almost certainly won’t go down in history, but there’s a squeak of fairy tale in the rise of the underdog pair.

Gone for all money as recently as May, with the winless Arthur’s Kingdom facing compulsory retirement because of his sub-25 rating and Tsui struggling with 11 winners for the campaign, they are now sitting pretty in Class Four and the top 10 in the trainers’ premiership, respectively.

While Arthur’s Kingdom has revived his career with three wins from his past four starts – including a victory at Happy Valley on Wednesday night – Tsui first required a lifeline before he could start this season full of running with three winners from the opening six meetings.

Staring down the barrel of a third straight strike and the likely end of his career, Tsui was never going to meet the Jockey Club’s trainers’ criteria as it stood four months ago.

But in June, amid uncertainty around fellow handler Benno Yung Tin-pang’s health, he was given a licence for this season while his colleague’s application was held for “further consideration”.

Yung was then granted a licence extension of his own and he continues down the long road to recovery from the serious illness that has kept him away from the track so far this season.

That ensured the number of trainers operating out of Sha Tin remained at 22 – a figure considered “optimum” by officials before an expected push up to 24 as the ongoing Sha Tin stable refurbishments reach completion and racing at Conghua kicks into gear in 2026.

On giving Tsui a welcome reprieve, the Jockey Club also made his life easier moving forward by revealing the latest tweaks to its increasingly malleable trainers’ criteria.

All Class Five winners would count again, with the maligned two-win cellar-grade limit scrapped after less than three years, while the total wins required for those with a Conghua base was lowered from 18 and 16 and the requirement for single-site trainers dropped from 16 to 14.

Incidentally, Tsui did end up meeting the rejigged benchmark last term, landing his seventh Class Five success of the season and 14th overall thanks to victory from – you guessed it – Arthur’s Kingdom.

The new mark of 14 is the lowest Tsui and his single-site colleagues have had to negotiate since 2013, when there were only 83 race meetings per season rather than 88.

It’s also two less than the 16 winners Peter Ho Leung trained when striking out in 2022-23.

June’s shifting of the goalposts was the latest in a string of moves the Jockey Club says fits in with its “strategic objectives” centred around Conghua.

Compulsory retirement age has been increased from 65 to 66 and the requirements for training up to 70 have been relaxed considerably, while the top performers are now permitted to continue until they’re 75.

This season, Yung will be turning 66, while Tsui and Michael Chang Chun-wai are the ones bidding to avoid third strikes.

While the rules as they’re written seem to matter little – Jockey Club executive director of racing Andrew Harding stressed this week that the final call will always come down to the licensing committee – Tsui for one is eager to leave nothing to chance this time around.

“I can’t miss anything now – I need to take every chance,” he said. “It’s been better and I hope I can keep going.”