Tag: Sha Tin

A Cooler, Calmer Golden Sixty Returns To Action

Having passed the potentially gut-busting early-season group handicaps, where he'd have been forced to concede plenty of weight, reigning Hong Kong Horse of the Year Golden Sixty (Aus) (Medaglia d'Oro) makes his much-anticipated 6-year-old debut in Sunday's G2 BOCHK Private Wealth Jockey Club Mile at Sha Tin Racecourse.

By all accounts, it is a much more mature version of Golden Sixty, who was last seen taking out the G1 FWD Champions Mile nearly seven months ago to run his winning streak to 14, three wins shy of the record held by the legendary Silent Witness (Aus). One of those horses that does just enough in his trials heretofore, the bay has put his rivals to the sword and is unbeaten in three morning hit-outs ahead of this comebacker. He should be fit enough to dispatch of a familiar cast en route to the G1 Longines Hong Kong Mile Dec. 12.

“He's good, he's healthy. He's more relaxed as you can see even in his gallops,” trainer Francis Lui told the HKJC notes team.

“I think he's getting more mature all the time. He's very well. He's good. We have this Sunday's race and then the Hong Kong Mile and then we'll see after that what we do,” he added.

 

Sunday's co-featured G2 BOCHK Private Banking Jockey Club Sprint (1200mT) also lures a pair of top-shelf runners who race first-up in the form of Wellington (Aus) (All Too Hard {Aus}) and the evergreen Hot King Prawn (Aus) (Denman {Aus}). Wellington won four of his six starts last term, capping the season with a 1 1/2-length defeat of the re-opposing Computer Patch (Aus) (Exceed and Excel {Aus}) in the G1 Chairman's Sprint Prize Apr. 25. Hot King Prawn is the defending champion of this event and bounced back from a subpar seventh as the favourite in the G1 Longines Hong Kong Sprint to earn a long-overdue top-level tally in the Centenary Sprint Cup. He was last seen finishing fifth, four lengths in back of Wellington, in a Class 1 handicap over course and distance Mar. 13.

“He's always been quite an easy horse to get fit and, of course, he's a very good horse so he always gives me a good feel,” said jockey Alexis Badel of Wellington. “He might need that first piece of competition, he might need to have that run but he looks good, fresh and happy. His action is good as well.”

Panfield (Chi) (Lookin At Lucky), third in last year's BMW Hong Kong Derby, earned champion stayer honors with a victory in the G1 Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup (2400mT) in May and was highly impressive in taking out the G3 Sha Tin Trophy H. over an insufficient 1600 metres Oct. 17. The 5-year-old entire is the marquee horse in the G2 BOCHK Jockey Club Cup over a much more suitable 10-furlong trip, a race he'll be using as a steppingstone to either the G1 Longines Hong Kong Cup–the richest event on International Day Dec. 12–or the G1 Longines Hong Kong Vase over the 2400 metres.

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Pyledriver in Good Order After Win, Hong Kong Still Plan

G1 Coronation Cup hero Pyledriver (GB) (Harbour Watch {Ire}) exited his victory in the Listed Churchill S. in good order and his next target remains the G1 Longines Hong Kong Vase on Dec. 12.

“He was fantastic on Sunday morning,” said trainer William Muir, who trains with Chris Grassick. “He moves so beautifully and he's like a dressage horse the way he trots away. He's got so much bounce–he's perfect.

“He lost a wee bit of weight but I thought he would. He was quite over his racing weight so I knew it would bring him down a little bit. He'll put a bit back on then he'll level off as to where we have to have him.

“He was 12 kilos above his racing weight for the Coronation Cup. And he was heavier when he went first time out to Newmarket and I said to everybody it wasn't my main objective and he went there at 480 kilos. On Saturday, he was 489.

“Hong Kong Vase is next. His plane goes on Dec. 3. He'll have to have a few days in quarantine when he gets there. He can walk round and do light exercise in the barn or in the quarantine area. Then we'll have three or four days before the race to do what we've got to do.”

The La Pyle Partnership runner opened his season with a good second in the G2 Jockey Club S. on May 1 prior to his June 4 Coronation Cup win. A small setback ruled out the 4-year-old for much of the summer.

“He's such a competitive horse,” Muir added. “You knew he'd run well but you thought if anything catches him out, it will be the race fitness at the end against race-fit horses, but it just showed he's still all there and he didn't get hurt before.

“That's the good thing. He never got hurt when he had this little setback, and it was small. I tried to emphasise to everybody it wasn't much but I don't want to make it a lot. If you'd have kept going you may have got way with it, or you may have ended up having a fairly big problem.”

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Nearly 60 Top-Level Winners Entered for Longines HKIR

With a record HK$100 million available across the four tests that comprise the Longines Hong Kong International Races, some 135 horses from all corners of the globe–including a whopping 57 that have already struck at Group 1/Grade I level–have been entered for the 'Turf World Championships,' to be held Sunday, Dec. 12 at Sha Tin Racecourse.

Despite the ongoing complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic–the staging of the Longines HKIR is officially subject to the approval of the HKSAR Government–fully 90 entries were received from the connections of overseas runners, eager to take a crack at some of Hong Kong's finest Thoroughbreds.

There is no higher-profile horse in the region than Golden Sixty (Aus) (Medaglia d'Oro), the reigning Horse of the Year and defending champion of the G1 Longines Hong Kong Mile. The 6-year-old, trained by Francis Lui, has won 17 of his 18 career starts and is currently in the midst of a 14-race winning streak. The gelding is set to have his first run of the season in the G2 BOCHK Private Wealth Jockey Club Mile Nov. 21.

Japanese-based horses won two of the four events last season and make up 40 of the entries from abroad. Among them are Danon Smash (Jpn) (Lord Kanaloa {Jpn}), who upset the G1 Longines Hong Kong Sprint last December, as well as champion Gran Alegria (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), who holds an entry for the day's richest event, the G1 Longines Hong Kong Cup (2000mT) as well as the Mile. The daughter of Tapitsfly (Tapit) is slated to run in this weekend's G1 Tenno Sho (Autumn) at Tokyo. Also among the entries from the 'Land of the Rising Sun' are last weekend's G1 Kikuka Sho hero Titleholder (Jpn) (Duramente {Jpn}), Vase; Uberleben (Jpn) (Gold Ship {Jpn}), the reigning G1 Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) winner; G1 Yasuda Kinen hero Danon Kingly (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}); and the well-traveled Loves Only You (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), currently in America for the Breeders' Cup meeting who took out the G1 FWD QE II Cup over the Sha Tin 2000 metres this past April.

Europe is strongly represented in each of the four HKIR. Mogul (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) could return to Sha Tin for a title defence in the Vase, while the Joseph O'Brien-conditioned State of Rest (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}) has been given an entry in both the Cup and the Vase as he tries to build on his narrow victory in the G1 Cox Plate at Moonee Valley Oct. 23. Tarnawa (Ire) (Shamardal), who will be looking for a repeat success in the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Turf at Del Mar on Saturday week, has also been handed dual entries, while Mac Swiney (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}), recently a good third to Sealiway (Fr) (Galiway {Ire}) in the G1 QIPCO British Champion S. Oct. 16, is an interesting 3-year-old possibility for Cup-winning trainer Jim Bolger. This year's G1 Deutsches Derby winner Sisfahan (Fr) (Isfahan {Ger}) holds an entry for the Vase.

The home team always puts up a strong defence, that could include top sprinter Hot King Prawn (Aus) (Denman {Aus}); Panfield (Chi) (Lookin At Lucky), a treble Group 1 winner in Chile who took out last year's G1 Champions and Chater Cup over 12 furlongs; last year's BMW Hong Kong Derby victor Sky Darci (NZ) (Darci Brahma {NZ}); and last-start G1 Chairman's Sprint Prize hero Wellington (Aus) (All Too Hard {Aus}), to name but a few.

The United States is represented by a pair of entries in the form of Gufo (Declaration of War) and Channel Cat (English Channel), each nominated to both the Cup and the Vase, while Singapore-based trainer Stephen Gray has entered Singapore Derby winner Hard Too Think (Aus) for the Cup and the Vase; and Kharisma (Aus) (Mossman {Aus}) for the Sprint.

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Nervous Witness A Star On the Rise in Hong Kong

by Alan Carasso

Crushed at the tills into $12 (1-5) favourtism to build on a smashing debut effort Sept. 5, Nervous Witness (Aus) (Star Witness {Aus}) absorbed plenty of mid-race heat, but responded to that challenge to annex a Class 3 event over the Sha Tin straight 1000 metres by 3 3/4 lengths, becoming the second Hong Kong 'TDN Rising Star' Friday afternoon.

Drawn high towards the stands'-side rail, Nervous Witness was away alertly, but was pressed to his outside by Brilliant Fortune (Aus) (Deep Field {Aus}), with a sectional time from the 800m to the 400m mark clocked in a wicked :19.92. Anything other than a superiour animal would be knocked around by that sort of tempo through the middle stages, but Zac Purton sat fairly quietly against him, asked his mount to win the race 250m out and kicked home to score with a minimum of fuss, getting his final quarter-mile in :22.37 (video). The final overall time of :55.24 was just 0.28 seconds slower than that recorded by his David Hayes stablemate Super Wealthy (Aus) (Epaulette {Aus}) in the G3 National Day Cup H. three races later.

Nervous Witness was the third of four winners on the day for the Hayes yard, taking him to 12 at this early stage of the season, while Super Wealthy rang up his 500th Hong Kong winner.

 

“[Zac] said he's a Group 1 horse, he said he got put under a lot of pressure from Joao Moreira, he said he just served it to him,” Hayes told the HKJC notes team. “You'd prefer him not to have that pressure but it's nice to see how he responded. He responded like a proper horse.”

Added Purton: They just don't do what he just did–it was special. He got it put to him today and he had to find and he didn't just find, he put them away.”

Nervous Witness, who races in the colours of the legendary sprinter Silent Witness (Aus), is the second foal from Hadiklaim who was acquired for A$2,000 at the 2015 Inglis Broodmare & Weanling Sale. Nervous Witness's 3-year-old half-brother Imatruestar (Aus) (Star Turn {Aus}) was a maiden winner at Grafton Aug. 30 and the mare–who hails from the female family of GI Kentucky Oaks winner Proud Spell (Proud Citizen)–is also responsible for a 2-year-old filly by Supido (Aus).

The first 'TDN Rising Star' based in Hong Kong was fan favourite Pakistan Star (Ger) (Shamardal), whose five victories included the G1 QE II Cup and G1 Champions and Chater Cup.

5th-Sha Tin, HK$1,570,000 (£148,714/€173,895/A$277,522/US$201,664), Hcp. (C3), 1000mT, :55.24, gd.
NERVOUS WITNESS (AUS), 121, g, 4, by Star Witness
1st Dam: Hadiklaim (Aus), by War Pass
2nd Dam: Sticky Date (Aus), by Danehill
3rd Dam: Puddinhead, by Affirmed
Sales history: A$110,000 Ylg '19 INGFEB. O-Arthur Antonio da Silva, Betty da Silva & Teresa Marie da Silva; B-Byerley Trading Pty Ltd (NSW); T-David Hayes. Click for the HKJC.com chart and VIDEO. Click for the free Equineline.com catalog-style pedigree.

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