An early season gelding operation stripped significant weight off Travel Brother's frame but trainer Caspar Fownes is confident the miler can now recapture his best form and already has a late season target in mind after a breakthrough win.

Travel Brother caused an upset at double figure odds for lightweight jockey Keith Yeung Ming-lun and will now be set for a Class One mile at the season finale on July 12.

"That looks an ideal race for him," Fownes said. "His overseas form was very good, and he is the type of horse that could do some good things now he has settled in."

A Listed winner in England for Richard Hannon and third in the 2013 Two Thousand Guineas behind Dawn Approach, Travel Brother was unplaced in last year's Hong Kong Derby for John Moore but began to find form at the end of the term.

After an off-season transfer to Fownes, Travel Brother was gelded - producing a big drop in body weight. Yesterday's listed weight of 1,007 pounds was nearly 80 pounds less than Travel Brother's biggest raceday weight recorded in Hong Kong and 56 pounds less than his first-up run this season.

"Ever since he got the chop, he just shriveled away a bit and he went a bit soft," Fownes said. "But he has really improved recently and has taken my eye in these last two weeks in the stable."

Fownes said the mixed ratings band structure of the Class One, for horses rated 120 to 95, meant the 95-rated Travel Brother got some welcome relief carrying 113 pounds, even if it was against a high quality field.

"He has been carrying some of those really big weights and he struggles with that," Fownes said. "When the rain came my confidence was boosted, he likes a little bit of sting out of the ground."

Travel Brother's win ended a frustrating run of outs for owner Jackie Wong See-sum, who hadn't won a race in more than a year and was part of the ownership group with Travel Renyi, who was first across the line but had a race overturned on protest late last month.