Zac Purton and Ka Ying Rising

Graham Cunningham on Ka Ying Rising's remarkable career

By Graham Cunningham

Horse Racing

Tue April 21, 2026 · 3h ago

Graham Cunningham talks to the Ka Ying Rising team ahead of his next eagerly-waited appearance at Sha Tin on Sunday.

Twenty’s plenty as Rising redefines the sprinting boundaries

Ka Ying Rising and Zac Purton flow down the Sha Tin straight (Alex Evers for HKJC)

So much for the notion that champions are made when no one is watching.

The fastest horse on the planet left privacy behind some while ago and, as remnants of a lightning storm crackle around Sha Tin on a sultry spring morning, KA YING RISING dodges a different kind of thunderbolt ahead of his bid to make it twenty consecutive wins in Sunday’s Chairman’s Sprint Prize.

Fresh from a maintenance AW workout under Zac Purton, the world’s best sprinter ambles uphill through the tunnel connecting the track with the sand ring when a fiery tail flasher heading the other way jinks violently left into his path.

Problems are averted thanks to an alert groom and an unflappable horse and rider, leaving a relieved champion jockey saying “that’s the last thing you need, but he handled himself well, didn’t he?”

Purton then addresses the issue of whether there is any chink in the armour of an elegant gelding whose lightning speed and lethal efficiency has made for compelling viewing ever since his winning streak began over two years ago.

“He used to be nervous behind the gates, but he’s settled down a lot,” he adds. “The trip to Australia for The Everest did him the world of good and he’s very special. The only thing now is to make sure he gets the start right all the time.”

Trainer David Hayes chuckles as he watches the video of a drama that almost turned into a crisis and says: “You wouldn’t credit it, would you?”

“My one instruction to Zac wasn’t so much about the work but ‘just don’t get him kicked’ and then this mad thing starts bucking and running to the left.”

“The instruction for Sunday is just to get the job done, but what I love about this horse is if the pace is not to his liking he leads, and if the pace is fast, he’ll follow and break the track record.”

The old racing bike Hayes uses to get around on work mornings sounds as if it could do with an oiling, but the veteran handler has unshakeable faith in what Ka Ying Rising is capable of nowadays.

“He’s pretty well the full package now and the journey has been wonderful,” he says.

“I do savour it because I just haven’t had one who’s so dominant – with the second favourite in a G1 race at 50-1 – and you just pinch yourself.

“A few people are saying he just does it here in Hong Kong, but the Australian sprinters are world renowned and he’s gone down into the melting pot of our best racing and beat them.”

Stopwatch separates the Hawkes from the pigeons

Ka Ying Rising is away and clear in the Everest

But this being 2026, when clicks and contrarianism pass for digital currency, and there are still a few doubters who aren’t convinced by a golden run that includes two LONGINES Hong Kong Sprints, that historic Everest last October and a runaway recent Sprint Cup win.

Step forward punchy Aussie trainer-cum-podcaster Wayne Hawkes, who feels Ka Ying Rising would fall off a cliff if hit with the double whammy of gate 12 and a wide trip when he bids to conquer Everest again.

The test of that theory will come if the Randwick draw gods frown in October, but old-fashioned facts tend to defuse the content cannon and this gelding’s factsheet speaks volumes.

Yes, Ka Ying Rising does meet a small core of familiar foes on home soil, and those foes include four-time G1 winning former champion Lucky Sweynesse and perennial best supporting actor Helios Express, who would surely be a multiple G1 winner in any other era.

The fact that the new champ has treated such a high-class pair like second raters so often illustrates the type of beast we are dealing with and those who play down last year’s Everest have conveniently forgotten that the field he beat with authority at Randwick currently boasts a combined haul of eighteen G1 wins in the land of sprinting giants.

Ka Ying Rising’s G1 total currently stands at eight with over £13m in prize money and the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings and independent global authority Timeform both rate him as the best horse on the planet ahead of Sunday’s £2.27m showdown.

But the most striking example of the way this stellar athlete is stretching the sprinting boundaries is provided by the cold, hard evidence of the clock.

High-class horses have been hurtling around Sha Tin for almost half a century, but Ka Ying Rising has lowered the track record three times in the last six months without appearing to break sweat, most recently when blitzing his Sprint Cup rivals in a time of 67.12s last month.

No one who witnessed that rout would doubt his ability to break 67s when conditions are suitable and, as a measure of his metronomic efficiency and Purton’s precise pace judgement, it’s worth noting that he owns six of the top ten 1200m times recorded at Sha Tin since 2008 and the 1400m record courtesy of a runaway win in February’s Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup.

Caviar’s record on the menu

Black Caviar after winning at Royal Ascot

Track records won’t be at the forefront of Purton’s mind when the gates crash open on Sunday and, with Satono Reve fresh from a decisive G1 score in Japan and Fast Network open to improvement back at his optimum trip, this year’s Chairman’s Sprint Prize isn’t purely a one-act affair.

But Ka Ying Rising looks sure to start at the basement price of 1.05 for the ninth time and, with a burgeoning global fan club, he is taking on racing Unicorn status with a fame founded firmly on brilliance rather than anything related to wagering.

That crossover appeal will reach greater heights in November if a plan to showcase the KYR experience at the HKJC’s Conghua Racecourse in Mainland China comes to fruition and, if the streak continues, a tilt at Black Caviar’s record of 25 consecutive victories will be on the radar early next year.

How the rest of the world will be travelling by then is anyone’s guess but Hayes, drawing on the wisdom and experience of over a hundred global G1 victories, gets back on his bike with a signoff that echoes Sir Henry Cecil’s most famous quote about the mighty Frankel.

“You always dream but you just can’t budget for one like this to come along,” he says.

“Two years ago, I thought he was going to be a really good G1 horse.

“A year or 18 months ago, I said he was the best I’ve ever trained.

"And now, although I’m a bit biased and one eyed, I think he’s at the level that makes him the best horse I’ve ever seen.”

Graham Cunningham on Ka Ying Rising's remarkable career

Twenty’s plenty as Rising redefines the sprinting boundaries

Stopwatch separates the Hawkes from the pigeons

Caviar’s record on the menu

More from Sporting Life

Safer gambling