Ben Linfoot: Home team star in Hong Kong International Races
Ben Linfoot reports from Hong Kong on a day the local horses and trainers took centre stage as Beauty Generation headed a clean sweep for the home team at Sha Tin.
Despite the bedlam in the crowd below him, a crystal clear call from commentator Brett Davis summed things up perfectly at Sha Tin on Sunday.
“This is 100 per cent pure Group One power,” was the line as Beauty Generation tanked his way clear in the LONGINES Hong Kong Mile, his swashbuckling win a statement of intent from a horse that will now try to continue his winning run on a global stage.
The poster boy of the Hong Kong International Races meeting, Beauty Generation fever will now sweep through Hong Kong, onwards to Dubai and hopefully Europe next summer.
He was the class on show here. His class would grace any race meeting in the world. And he’ll showcase Hong Kong racing, a remarkable industry, wherever he goes.
It’s a numbers game on this island as 800 races make up 88 race days per season and £150million is the average amount of money bet into pools at every single one of those meetings. Incredible figures.
And it survives thanks to investment in horses from overseas, as John Moore, the brilliant trainer of Beauty Generation, explained after his horse had put on a show.
“We’re a jurisdiction with no breeding or anything like that with 1200 or 1300 horses and we have to go and buy these private purchases,” he said.
“For George [Moore, his son] to go out and source this fellow and for me to be able to turn him into a top-class miler it’s a great feeling.
“What he did today, he had to do it the hard way as far as I was concerned. He did it facile, we’ve got a really good horse on our hands here.
“He needs to go away to make him a global great, so from that point of view I’ll be speaking to Patrick [owner, Patrick Kwok Ho Chuen] and his father about going away to Dubai for the 1800 metre race [Dubai Duty Free Stakes].”
We’ll look forward to Dubai in March, then, where we’ll hopefully see Beauty Generation dazzle in the desert as he makes the first step in proving himself on that global stage.
The man in the saddle, Zac Purton, Hong Kong’s champion jockey, had a wonderful day having already landed the LONGINES Hong Kong Vase aboard Exultant.
This was also a huge moment for Hong Kong.
Just the third horse in history to be trained here and win the Vase, this race is usually dominated by Europe and it looked like that might be the case again when they fielded eight of the 14 runners.
It wasn’t to be for them, but, this is a horse that was sourced in Europe, bought out of Mick Halford’s yard in late 2017 when he was known as Irishcorrespondent and most famous, at the time, for finishing third in Churchill’s Irish 2000 Guineas.
A son of Teofilo, he was born and bred at Ballygallon Stud in County Kildare, but after just four starts in his homeland he was bought by Eddie Wong Ming Chak and sent to wily Hong Kong handler Tony Cruz.
He’s taken his time but stepping up in trip to a mile and a half has been the making of him, Purton calling out his stamina as the one attribute that won him the race afterwards.
Cruz expanded on that and cited tactics as another key element of the success.
“He hasn’t got any speed at all, but today, over a mile and a half, I said put him up in front somewhere and it worked out that way,” he said.
“This season he’s much stronger, a better horse with more experience. Zac rode a perfect race and I’m pretty happy about that.”
Laying down the Lor
It was a clean sweep for Hong Kong as Frankie Lor, in just his second season with a licence, landed a remarkable double as Mr Stunning pounced in the Sprint before Glorious Forever, under a first-class front-running ride from Silvestre de Sousa, prevailed in the £2.8million LONGINES Hong Kong Cup.
Lor is no young buck, though, at 52. He graduated from the school of John Size, his old boss and mentor, who used to train Mr Stunning and did so last year when he won the 2017 Sprint.
This time the horse was prepared by Lor with Size having to make do with second, third, sixth and ninth, that last position going to the well-fancied but ultimately disappointing favourite Hot King Prawn.
“I took a long time to get a licence so I need to try my best to keep going and win more races like this,” said Lor afterwards.
“He’s [John Size] still happy for me because I worked for him, he’s a very good boss.”
Both men are very good trainers, as well. There are quite a few here. And by winning all four Group One contests the very best of Hong Kong’s racing, both horse and human, was showcased on a day lit up by the brilliance of Beauty Generation.
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