Last year's champion jockey Zac Purton saw the formality of his crown passing to Brazilian Joao Moreira during yesterday's Sha Tin programme but the Australian kept alive a slim hope that this will be the first season in which two riders reach a century of wins.

Five years ago, Douglas Whyte rode exactly 100 winners in beating Brett Prebble's challenge by a single victory, the nearest there has been to twin centuries, while Moreira fell three short of triple figures last year behind Purton's 112 wins.

Purton landed Why Why for Paul O'Sullivan then Supreme Profit for Danny Shum Chap-shing to take him to 91 yesterday and still has work to do to get to 100 but he does have the run of the house in the four days remaining - Moreira misses the next two through suspension while Douglas Whyte and Brett Prebble miss the last two meetings.

"If it happens, it happens and I've been chipping away with a couple of wins each at the recent meetings but it's hard to be confident of riding nine in four days," Purton said.

Purton's main partner trainer has been Caspar Fownes, with 24 wins this season, but O'Sullivan and Shum are regularly amongst his top providers and the jockey has pushed his wins with each yard into double figures again.

"Paul hasn't had Why Why long and he's done a great job with him, winning three out of six," Purton said.

"There seems to be two of him, Why Why. There's the one who seems a bit one-paced and then there's the one we saw today where he does everything right and looks impressive. The inside draw certainly helped him, I was able to sneak up behind the leaders cheaply and then he really put them away quite stylishly. That takes him to Class Two but if we get that version of him, he won't be out of place there."

Supreme Profit has been one of the success stories of the season, kicking off in Class Five with a rating of 39 and he too will find himself in Class Two when the handicapper is done with him on Monday morning.

"That's hard to do so full credit to Danny. Supreme Profit's been up all season - he had his first run in the first race on opening day - so he gave him some time off after his last run in April," said Purton. "That did the trick because he trialled nicely coming into this and then the race couldn't have panned out better. I had an uninterrupted run in what was quite a stop-start race where everyone else was up and back and jockeying for position. As a result, when they put the brakes on approaching the turn, I went from second last to a length off the lead without having to do a thing.

"He's a beautiful ride this horse - a lovely action, great attitude and he has a nice turn of foot when things happen the right way. He's already come a long way but he won't be disgraced in Class Two."