And in the blink of an eye it was all over for another year. Those of us who got up early (well, for a Sunday) must have struggled not to be impressed by the three Group Ones from Hong Kong and their combined (this is not a typo) prize money of close to £4 million between them, putting our prize money to shame (the highest value race in the UK on Sunday is worth £30,000 to put things in perspective, and even the supporting handicaps on the Sha Tin card were worth a minimum of £115,000).
It does surprise me that we (as in the Europeans) don’t have more raiders for money at that level with one from Hugo Palmer and one from William Haggas all we could muster, on decent turf, and with all sorts of incentives to take part (travel expenses, hotel bills paid for connections etc), and negates the age old argument of poor owners screaming for more prize money to me.
On to the racing and on the bright side I did tip all three easy Group One winners in my earlier article – but I can’t really claim to be any kind of genius as they returned at UK prices of 1/5f, 9/20f, and 13/20f, but a winner is a winner and I will still bask in any glory available.
In the Chairman’s Sprint Lucky Sweyness put them all to bed with a devastating turn of foot despite a decent early pace to win by over three lengths pretty hard held. There is a rumour that connections are considering sending him over for Royal Ascot which I would love to see (then we can all find out just how good he really is), so best of luck to Rod Street and his team who will try sweet-talking connections until the very last moment, though I admit if I owned him, I’d stay in Hong Kong when you look at the figures.
Next up was the legend that is Golden Sixty in the FWD Champions Mile, the first horse to win this race three times, and now the second highest money earner of all time behind wondermare Winx. At the age of seven he ought to be going backwards, but he has never been one to follow the rules, and was sent into the lead earlier than normal here to win by a length and a half. That makes it 25 wins for the son of Medaglio d’Oro which is frankly ridiculous and I know that jockey Vincent Ho would love to see him travel to take on the best, Royal Ascot included. In reality, I doubt that will happen as it has been mooted before without success, but we can all dream and he would be the star of the meeting should he bother to make the journey.
Lastly, the biggest prize money on offer all day was for the FWS QEII Cup, but the victory of Golden Sixty made it feel like part of the supporting card and not the main event to me. British raider Dubai Honour was a much bigger price over there than his starting price of 37/10 and I have to say I felt Tom Marquand was too far back before looking for a late run, but he didn’t do too badly to come home a running-on third and pick up over £266,000 in the process. This was al about Romantic Warrior who was an easy winner in the end despite Silvestre de Sousa setting a slow early pace, that may have (but didn’t) become his undoing. Up close throughout he was sent to the lead over a furlong out and won eased down as James McDonald saluted the crowd to land the odds and leave the local punters walking away quids in.
Once again the challengers came with Japan Australia and the UK all having a go, and once again the local Hong Kong trained horses came out on top – anyone who thinks their horses aren’t up to scratch needs their head examined, and we can only hope they head off to Europe one day to prove it to the doubters.
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