Last Monday we witnessed a very gripping BMW Champions Mile at Sha Tin, with just half a length ultimately separating the top three finishers as John Moore-trained Xtension edged fellow home runner Lucky Nine and Mike de Kock-trained Musir from the UAE to grab his first Hong Kong victory in this International Group 1 event.
The performances of Xtension and Lucky Nine in this top-class field show that our top four-year-old milers truly possess international quality. Lucky Nine put up a gallant performance in defeat, while Xtension’s victory underlined his credentials as a top miler. If they can retain their form, I think both horses will be powerful contenders in the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Races in December.
It’s interesting to hear John saying after the race that he would love to take this horse for the Queen Anne Stakes in the Royal Ascot meeting in June, and later the Cox Plate in Australia in October. So let’s see how his overseas race plan develops later on.
Meanwhile, it’s another good sign for us that five of the horses involved in Monday's race, including all three overseas contenders, made the BMW Champions Mile their next target after racing at the Dubai World Cup meeting a month earlier. Among these five, Musir ran well to finish third while Beauty Flash came a close and creditable fourth, returning to the mile distance after racing over 1800m in Dubai.
The strong performances of Xtension and Lucky Nine against overseas contenders in the Champions Mile augur well for another four-year-old, Ambitious Dragon, who will be one of the main home team hopefuls in the second of our Spring Internationals tomorrow, the Audemars Piguet QE II Cup. Again, we have three overseas contenders – namely River Jetez, Wigmore Hall and Gitano Hernando – who performed very well at the Dubai World Cup meeting. I hope we will see even more Dubai World Cup day runners coming on to Hong Kong next year to take up the Champions Mile or AP QEII Cup challenges.
I should like to share with you two interesting statistics about tomorrow's race. Over the past decade, nine of the 10 Hong Kong Derby winners, the sole exception being Collection in 2009, have gone on to participate in the AP QEII Cup as their next start. Yet among them, only Vengeance Of Rain in 2005 has been successful in completing the Derby and AP QEII Cup double, while two other runners, Elegant Fashion in 2003 and Super Satin last year, have been able to secure AP QEII placings.
This statistic underlines the stiff challenge that our top four-year-olds face when they come up against older horses and experienced overseas contenders at International Group 1 level. So it's not going be an easy task for Ambitious Dragon tomorrow, but still, I hope he can ride on his nice recent form line and perform admirably.
Meanwhile, it will be the sixth consecutive year that Viva Pataca has participated in this race, which is quite a remarkable achievement. Moreover, he has run in the first three for the past four years, winning the race in 2007 and 2010. It is rare anywhere in the world for a horse to perform so consistently well at top level over such a long period, so I'm sure he will have many loyal fans cheering him on tomorrow, hoping to see this evergreen nine-year-old storm into the top three once again.
As usual, I have also attended trackwork at Sha Tin Racecourse yesterday morning to watch the preparation of those overseas runners before Sunday’s race. Before the overseas runners having their workouts on the track, two heats of barrier trial were also arranged on the All Weather Track. I was particularly impressed with the performance of Let Me Handle It, who ran third in the Derby last month, in winning the 1200m trial. Having taken a short break after the Derby, he was very relaxed yesterday morning but from his emphatic performance, it showed that he has already returned to a very nice condition. I know that his trainer Caspar Fownes will arrange him to take part in the Hong Kong Group 3 Queen Mother Memorial Cup and I’m looking forward to seeing his performance next Saturday.
Last night, we also enjoyed a great evening at the APQEII Cup Gala Party held at Happy Valley Racecourse. Many of our overseas guests and connections of APQEII Cup runners also joined us for various performances, including the key performances given by artiste Cindy Gomez in the evening. I think she’s definitely a rising star. Her powerful voice and presentation brought the party to its wonderful climax.
The party gave us all some relaxing and enjoyable moments before the horse connections and all of us in the Club get our focus back to the APQEII Cup tomorrow. With the expected good to slow pace in this race, it will favour horses positioned in the front. With her good draw, River Jetez should be in a perfect spot just behind the speed. She’s in very good form and it will not be easy to run her down. Meanwhile, I would not underestimate Wigmore Hall as he also showed promising credentials in the Dubai Duty Free. But both California Memory and Ambitious Dragon can run fantastically fast late sectionals, which can get over some of this pace-related handicap. I am still optimistic that we can have a Hong Kong winner with these two horses, especially Ambitious Dragon who seems to have kept his condition. His Derby performance was simply outstanding and the form has been confirmed with Xtension winning the BMW Champions Mile.
In the Audemars Piguet Millenary Handicap, it’s a competitive Class 2 event. It’s expected to be run at a good to fast pace, which will make the expected leaders Tailwind and Flying Colours a bit more difficult to dominate the race. Tailwind is an upcoming horse and has a chance to finish in the top three for me. So does Shinning Victory who returns to Sha Tin, and was a bit unlucky to be blocked in his last start. I think Pretty One should be the horse to beat in this race, as he should enjoy the fast pace and is working very well recently. Meanwhile, I would not be surprised to see a good performance from Supreme Win because in my view he performs better at a distance of 1200m, than the seven-furlong distance that he ran in his last two starts.
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