Caspar Fownes may have been left slightly disappointed after Military Attack's fourth in the Citibank Hong Kong Gold Cup, but he bounced back with a masterpiece a race later as Renaissance Art broke his local maiden in style.

Renaissance Art (Zac Purton) showed a nifty turn of foot to hold off an unlucky Celestial Smile (Umberto Rispoli), who charged late under his 133-pound impost after finding traffic early in the straight.

The winner arrived from Ireland with big wraps, having beaten last season's top European three-year-old Australia on debut as a juvenile before only racing once more, and his quick breakthrough has the trainer believing he can now continue on his way.

"It's a good effort from Renaissance Art at his third run here," Fownes said. "I think he's going to keep progressing and in time I think he'll make a nice stayer. To be fair, though, we were a bit lucky - the second horse struck a bit of trouble and we were able to get first run on him, which proved the difference."

Purton brought up a double on Renaissance Art, having earlier won on Super Jockey, and agrees the horse has plenty of improvement yet.

"The key was getting up to a distance where he was going to be a little bit more comfortable," he said. "I think he could develop into a nice horse."

Fownes also had an update post-race on stable stalwart Lucky Nine, with the eight-year-old set to continue his globetrotting exploits at the end of this month.

"It's looking like we'll go to Dubai for the Golden Shaheen with Lucky Nine," Fownes said. "The stabling issue was a problem again in Japan so we've ruled that out."

The trainer acknowledged the new Meydan dirt track was some query, making it a different proposition to when Lucky Nine finished third in the 2012 Golden Shaheen on the synthetic Tapeta surface.

"He raced well on the dirt early in his career here and he's trialled well on it," he said. "The concern is obviously the new surface at Meydan, but it won't be something we will know about until we get there and he gets a chance to work on the track."