Like everyone else I've been enjoying the start of Euro 2016 and the Copa America. Watching the games reminded me how many players are the products of youth academies, where they built up the strength and stamina they need to play 90 minutes of top-level football. Mindful of this, three years ago the Club joined with Manchester United to initiate the Jockey Club Youth Football Fitness Assessment – Hong Kong's first systematic assessment of the football-specific physical capabilities of young players.
Last week we released the final results. Overall Hong Kong's young players measured up well, but on two of the four measures - explosiveness and endurance – they performed less well than their counterparts in the United Kingdom. This finding, along with the rest of the database has now been handed over to Hong Kong Football Association which will use it to develop fitness training programmes for the Hong Kong Youth Team. Hopefully this will lead to some even better performances by our young players in future.
Back to racing, John Moore has trained many champion horses in Hong Kong over the past three decades. In recent years he also extended his dominance in major races outside Hong Kong, with a few top-class successes in Dubai and Singapore. Werther and Designs On Rome were his flag-bearers this term as these two horses in total brought him three G1/HKG1 victories this season.
Many of you are now aware that John earned a personal breakthrough as a horse owner last weekend, as his horse Eagle Way defeated 17 other opponents and won him a first G1 in Australia, taking out the Queensland Derby. We all greatly enjoy watching quality horses competing in top races, but it is certainly different for an owner when he or she is watching their horses competing in Group 1 events - the level of anxiety and nervousness are totally incomparable. Werther also made his mark in last year's Queensland Derby, finishing second in that race, before he came to Hong Kong and flourished here with a Derby and APQEII Cup win. John is likely to import Eagle Way to Hong Kong for a supporting Owner and he could be on target for a Derby campaign as well.
It was a big day last Saturday for other Hong Kong connections overall as Zac Purton landed a Group race double, headlined by a devastating win from Sacred Elixir in the G1 J J Atkins, while Joao Moreira managed a win in the Queensland Guineas.
I'm sure you enjoyed the first night of Royal Ascot yesterday and will be tuning in for the two remaining nights simulcast later this week. For the time being, we still have seven race meetings remaining this season, including the eight races at Happy Valley this evening. Among them the 8th race is the Staunton Handicap, a Class 2 event over 1,650 metres of the B course. Precision King is the only horse in the field that really goes forward with regularity and Superoi should stalk him, especially under the lightweight of Kei Chiong. Jun Huo and Magical Beauty should stalk that pair from midpack with Travel Renyi and Cheeky Too further back.
Magical Beauty has been sensational of late with three wins from his last four starts and figures a strong contender for Matthew Chadwick while Superoi looks well handicapped as both aim to handle the jump to Class 2. Jun Huo has a win above this level and is well drawn and should not be far from the lead with a slow pace. I will give the slight win edge to Magical Beauty while Jun Huo and Superoi are both solid chances each. Simply Invincible is also a placing chance after his improvement with blinkers last start.
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