They say there’s no such thing as a racing certainty and that was certainly true last weekend with Werther’s dominant win in the Audemars Piguet QEII Cup.
The world of football too has brought its share of surprises this season. The biggest is surely Leicester City’s amazing run of success in the English Premier League, well ahead of the traditional “big four” clubs. Leicester only needs three more points from three games to claim their first Premier League title in their 132 years of history. It will be a famous victory if they do.
There have been surprises too in the Champions League. Who would have thought that last year’s champions, Barcelona, would not be playing in the semi-finals that kicked off last night? Their “MSN” combination of strikers has been a nightmare for defenders this season, but even they were not good enough for Atletico Madrid, who beat them in the quarter-finals two weeks ago.
Tonight, Atletico Madrid will be on its home turf again, playing Bayern Munich. Doubtless some of you will be tuning in after the race meeting. Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if Bayern wins, but given Atletico’s form it could easily go the other way.
Returning to last weekend, it was truly a phenomenal field for our Audemars Piguet QEII Cup but the main act was a one-horse show as our Derby winner Werther formally presented himself to the world with a magnificent victory in this HK$20 million G1 event.
The manner in which he won this race was far from expected, and the surprise was even shared by his trainer, John Moore. But it was terrific to see him following the footsteps of some great horses such as Designs On Rome and Ambitious Dragon and complete a Derby-QEII Cup double the same year.
This new superstar defeated a world-class field that contained nine international G1 winners. Whether he will receive a high international rating for his exceptional winning performance remains to be seen. But one thing that is certain is that our racing fans showed their tremendous support, yielding the highest attendance at the meeting over the last five years, a not insignificant statistic considering the troublesome weather.
Hopefully two other international races at Sha Tin this coming Sunday will be equally fascinating - the Champions Mile that features reigning Japanese Horse of the Year Maurice, and the Chairman’s Sprint Prize with the participation of Chautauqua – undoubtedly the best Australian sprinter at the moment.
With Hong Kong being promoted to Part I in the international Blue Book, I hope we will see more international Group horses coming here to contest our pattern races in the future. Tonight at Happy Valley we would also welcome our racing friends from Korea, recently promoted to the Part II of the Blue Book, with the inaugural running of the Korea Racing Authority Trophy. I’m delighted to develop closer ties with our Korean counterparts, and reciprocally the KRA will also stage a HKJC Trophy race at Seoul Racecourse Park in September this year.
The Korea Racing Authority Trophy is symbolic for the growing status of Korean Racing and its determination to become an International Force in racing. We have worked together with Korea to support them in their development because we think it is important for the global development and recognition of racing as a global sport to have a country like Korea have a strong horse racing industry.
The Korea Racing Authority Trophy (Handicap) is run as race 6 and is a Class 3 over 1200m. The weather is unfortunately not kind to us and I expect a track which will be on the yielding side and likely favour horses who can handle this kind of track. Rocket Let Win is a course and distance winner twice and can go forward to do so again. He could be the early leader while Forever Red will also likely take a handy spot. Courageous Brother and Blaze Stamina are expected to slot in next while Grace Heart could be trapped wide. Caga Force should get a good trip behind the lead pack.
The good to slow pace should give a little advantage to horses on the pace and horse who will make a run in the middle of the track. Blaze Stamina is an improving horse and being ridden by Joao Moreira from a good draw is my favourite. He handled soft going when winning a 1000m race in Australia and should handle the ground condition. Forever Red has not raced on a softish track but I still see him as a place chance and the same applies to the improving Sweet Home. Rocket Let Win is ridden by Kei Chiong and with the 10 pound claim being fitter than at his last run plus drawn in gate one, may surprise.
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