This year’s Royal Ascot meeting came to an end last Saturday with an international result in the day’s big Group 1 contest. It was legendary jockey Frankie Dettori, the British-based Italian, who rode the American runner Undrafted to success in the Diamond Jubilee. The win was a second of the week for American trainer Wesley Ward and, as a side note, Dettori’s success meant that the meeting’s eight G1 races were won by eight different jockeys.
If you have followed Royal Ascot over the past few years you will already be familiar with Wesley Ward. He is a regular participant with his horses, particularly his speedy two-year-olds. Ward won the G2 Queen Mary Stakes on Wednesday, and on Saturday Undrafted gave him a first G1 win at the Royal meeting. Undrafted is owned by NFL American Football player Wes Welker and I’m pleased to hear that connections have indicated their interested in a tilt at the LONGINES Hong Kong Sprint in December. We’ve had American runners in the Sprint in the past, such as California Flag who fared quite well, so it would be great if this speedy horse were to come as it would certainly add another layer of interest.
The Diamond Jubilee Stakes day also marked the conclusion of our simulcast overseas races for this season. During the 2014/15 season we have simulcast more than 110 overseas races for our racing fans in Hong Kong, including no less than 48 international G1 events. Local fans were not only able to witness live the victories of Hong Kong runners Aerovelocity and Dan Excel in Japan and Singapore, but also were able to watch outstanding performances by international stars such as Treve’s back-to-back win in the Arc, the rise of Solow through his wins in the Dubai Turf and most recently the Queen Anne Stakes, as well as Golden Horn and Mongolian Khan in the Epsom and Australian Derbies respectively.
Due to current simulcast restrictions, which limit us to have just 15 simulcast days, and 10 simulcast races which fall on a Hong Kong raceday, we have to be selective about which races we show, having taken into consideration a number of factors. It was a bit disappointing that we were unable to provide live coverage of other important racing events, such as Rich Tapestry’s win in the Santa Anita Sprint Championship, the moment when American Pharoah won the US Triple Crown with his win in the Belmont Stakes, or even for the upcoming July Cup. I have always perceived such practice to be far from ideal, as the growing trend in the sport is on globalisation, and there is a growing interest of racing fans to follow those top-class horses when they run in overseas races. For now, that is the limitation based on the current framework, and I hope you will continue to support our simulcast arrangements next season, for us to be able to channel your interest and need to the government.
In the meantime, you can offer your support to your favourite overseas runners in our Most Admired Overseas Horse voting campaign, and you can also vote for your favourite local horse and jockey in our Most Popular Horse and Most Popular Jockey of the Year polls. The public voting period will close at midnight today so please take this last chance and vote for your preferred horses and horsemen.
Getting back to local racing, this season has only six race meetings and a total of 60 races remaining. The end-of-season excitement is once again dominated by the trainers’ premiership as John Moore, who notched a double on Sunday, leads the table with three wins, with John Size replacing Caspar Fownes in second place with his treble last weekend. Fownes will be sending five runners to Happy Valley tonight, compared to three from the Moore stable and two Size representatives. Every win will be vital at this stage as it looks like we could be going right to the wire again with this one.
For the eight races on the card, tonight's eighth race, the Lung Cheung Handicap at 1650 metres, is a Class 3 event with an expanded rating band of 85 to 60. Nine of the 12 runners in the field are rated between 80 and 83. Star Majestic is a three-time winner at the course and distance this season and comes off a good effort three weeks ago in Class 2. His running style will have him close to a moderate pace and he performed well last season in his only test over a good to yielding track. He is a win and top three chance.
Selkirk Star is another horse dropping a grade from Class 2 and is a horse that has no prior experience at Happy Valley. Despite that, he is a place chance in the race as he figures to be closing ground over the final section of the race and enters the race in good form. Winnie's Horse is a last start winner on the dirt but also has performed well at the Valley and handles a wet track. He is another top three chance along with Bullish Boy, another last-start winner.
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