Good days are just around the corner for O'Sullivan and Doleuze

Paul O'Sullivan and Olivier Doleuze have experienced slow starts to the season, by their high standards at least, but the performance of Fellowship in the first barrier trial at Sha Tin on Friday indicates things are rapidly turning for the better.

Fellowship charged home from an impossible position in the 1,200 metres trial on the all-weather track and got within a length of the winner, the O'Sullivan-trained stablemate Treasure Raiders, when the post was reached.

It wasn't so much the bare facts and figures of the trial but the way Fellowship did it, making up the huge leeway with Doleuze sitting motionless on his back, riding on a long rein as though the gelding was ambling through pacework.

On the turn, there were five horses in the 'action division' of the trial and two - Fellowship and Industrial Success - that were out the back.

So it was amazing to see Fellowship eat away at the huge deficit and get so close at the finish, claiming Group-class sprinter Regency Horse (Felix Coetzee) for third place right on the line.

Fellowship is yet another son of the former outstanding New Zealand sprinter O'Reilly, who in turn was a son of two champion sprinters in Last Tycoon and the 1989 Golden Slipper heroine Courtza. O'Sullivan trained O'Reilly during his tenure as 11-times champion trainer of New Zealand, so he certainly knows and understands the breed.