Good Omen returning from layoff in Japan Racing Association Trophy

Two months ago, Good Omen, the 5-year-old British-bred gelding, was transferred from trainer Dennis Yip to Douglas Whyte.

Whyte, the former champion jockey in Hong Kong, spent the summer forming a stable for his first season as a trainer, which began last month. Through Sunday, Whyte had won with 4 of 30 runners.

Good Omen is one of six runners Whyte starts on Wednesday’s nine-race program at Happy Valley Racecourse. Good Omen is part of a competitive field of 10 in the $267,747 Japan Racing Association Trophy at about a mile and 50 yards on turf.

Good Omen, who has been assigned 124 pounds, has not raced since a ninth-place finish in a handicap on the infield dirt track at Sha Tin last May. Good Omen, who typically races as a stalker, won a lesser handicap at 1 1/4 miles on turf at Sha Tin last March, one of two wins in a nine-race campaign during the 2018-19 season.

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The new season began in early September. Wednesday’s race will be Good Omen’s first start at Happy Valley since a troubled fourth at the same distance last February. Jockey Regan Bayliss has the mount, seeking his second win of the year. Bayliss is off to a slow start this season, with one victory from 27 mounts.

Green Luck, the winner of two of his last five starts since early May, is the 132-pound topweight for trainer Caspar Fownes and leading rider Joao Moreira. Fownes has had a quiet start to the season, with two wins from 52 runners. Green Luck provided one of those wins, in a handicap at a mile and 50 yards at Happy Valley on Sept. 11, the last time Moreira was aboard.

The 118-pound low weight is Playa Del Puente, who was fifth in his Hong Kong debut in a seven-furlong race at Sha Tin on Sept. 1. Trained by Danny Shum, Playa Del Puente won the Patton Stakes for 3-year-olds on the all-weather track at Dundalk, Ireland, in March in his final start in that country.