FWD QEII Cup report: Purton persistence pays as Exultant powers home in QEII Cup

The reigning champion jockey suffered a miserable start to the afternoon at Sha Tin when Aethero went amiss as even money favourite for the Chairman's Sprint Prize and suffered further frustration when old ally Beauty Generation went down by a short head to Southern Legend in the Champions Mile.

But fears of a slowly-run race didn't dissuade punters from placing their faith on the shoulders of Purton and Tony Cruz's gelding in the final feature of the day and the canny Aussie took luck out of the equation by dusting off an old and trusted playbook to fill the one remaining G1 gap on his HK record despite a late scare.

"I didn't want a repeat of last time, I wanted to make it a staying test and we did that," he said. "He's the best stayer in Hong Kong, obviously, but I must say that I was a bit worried with 200m to go as I was flat, I was empty!

"The feeling going over the line knowing that now I'm the only jockey in Hong Kong to win every G1 here, it's a nice one. I've run second in this race so many times and I thought I was going to run second again. It caps off a frustrating day but these G1 races are hard to win, they should never be easy. It means a lot and it's an achievement I'm very proud of. The competition is tough. I'll go home a little bit flat but I'm going to go home very thankful that this trophy is now on the mantlepiece."

Exultant had got going too late from off the pace behind stablemate Time Warp in the HK Gold Cup in February and Purton avoided a repeat by sending him up to harry the mercurial chestnut ,with the result that the pace through the first 1200m was over ten lengths faster than for their last meeting.

Time Warp cried enough as Purton drove Exultant ahead 300m out, leaving Cruz's third runner Furore to emerge as the main danger, but the 1.5 favourite kept on digging despite clocking his slowest final 400m sectional for a long time to prevail by three parts of a length in a time of 2m00s dead, the first two clear of Eagle Way.

Winning handler Cruz had been hoping to land a 1-2-3 but was more than happy to saddle the Quinella. "The most important thing is that I expected Exultant to win but I thought Furore was going to do something, too," he smiled.

He added: "Exultant will go the same plan as last year, for the Champions & Chater Cup. He doesn't have many races left and Furore could go there, too, as we can't go overseas this year.

"Not even humans can go anywhere now but I'm so glad that the Hong Kong Jockey Club and the Government have allowed racing to carry on. It's fantastic. We are one of a few countries still racing with Japan and Australia. It's sad but I hope everything comes back to normal sooner or later. We need to have the public back and racing's going to get better, for sure."

Exultant now has a month to recover from his exertions before the Champions & Chater over 2400m, which he won decisively twelve months ago. This latest G1 success was his tenth in HK - and his fourth at G1 level - and his earnings since chasing home Churchill and Thunder Snow (when known as Irishcorrespondent for Michael Halford) in the Irish Guineas three years ago have now topped the £6m mark.

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