With the exception of our international meetings, it’s not often that we arrange three trophy races in the same race day. That being so, it was a rather special feat for trainer John Moore to claim a hat-trick of cup races wins with his stable runners in the HKG3 Premier Cup, Members Cup and Racing Club 5th Anniversary Cup on Sunday.
Among his winning trio, the improving Sterling City in the Premier Cup defeated a host of this season’s Group race performers to claim his first success at Group level in the last Pattern race of the season. Some have pointed to the fact that he benefitted from being lowly-weighted in the handicap but I think one can’t take away any credit from him given how he justified favouritism with such an impressive late surge.
Apart from his three winners, one of Moore’s beaten runners on the day caught my eye, as I’m sure he did many others. The horse was Designs On Rome, which finished second in the last race. This Hong Kong debutant did not jump cleanly at the start but he followed race favourite All You Wish and progressed nicely into the home straight before finishing strongly. Designs On Rome ran second in a G1 in Ireland last year behind subsequent 2,000 Guineas winner Dawn Approach who also won the G1 St James’s Palace Stakes last night. The horse evidently has high-class potential and this was a very promising effort for his first start in Hong Kong. His decent performance once again highlights Moore’s ability to source good types overseas with the talent and scope to progress into big-race contenders, which is important in maintaining the high racing standard and premium quality of our racehorses in Hong Kong. Anyway I do hope trainers in Hong Kong would bring more quality imports here, making our races even more exciting in the future.
Although John has told a certain media members that it would be difficult for him to get back in contention for this season’s trainer’s premiership, as he is nine adrift of leader Dennis Yip, he still has another possible target. In each of the past two seasons he has broken the HK$100 million prize money mark. With his stakes won currently at HK$97.8 million, he is closing in on that notable benchmark for the third season in a row. I’ll be keeping a close eye on his stable runners in the remaining race meetings to see if they can add to the prize money earnings.
When it comes to the top earning horse of the season Military Attack is the one. With his three victories at G1/HKG1 level, including the SIA Cup in Singapore, the stakes money he won reached HK$26.9 million this term. Our Most Popular Horse voting has been ongoing for a fortnight and Military Attack is currently the outright leader. For those who have not yet participated in our voting, just make sure you do so before our polling closes this Sunday otherwise you will miss the chance to have your view expressed in the outcome.
Including tonight’s races only four Happy Valley race meetings remain this season. It is always a great atmosphere at the Valley and I can tell you it’s always a highlight of my week, so don’t miss your chance to enjoy spectacular night racing action here before the season ends. We will have some other wonderful music performances and programmes in our Music Rocks the Valley themed meeting tonight. Equally exciting will be our eight races on the card. Among them in the Mount Nicholson Handicap (1st section), which is run as a Class 4 over 1200m, the pace is expected to be good which should give every horse a fair chance. Ocean Wide and Fortune Together should be competing for the lead with Multiexpress and What A Heart likely to go forward and press them too. China Angel, Good Hong Kong, Master Rio and possibly High Return can be well placed. Good Hong Kong with Douglas Whyte on board is working well and is my favourite to win this race. Multiexpress should have overcome his disappointing performance last start and is a place chance for me, as well as China Angel and Make It.
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