Hong Kong File | Ka Ying Rising, Romantic Warrior and the great barrier beef

Rising but not Damp

Draw day for FWD Champions Day and my weather app says the chance of rain in Hong Kong is 95 per cent.

The 1.05 chance hasn’t copped as the ubiquitous Lucky presides over the barrier ballot for three G1s worth over £7m, but nobody is expecting another to get turned over.

Zac Purton and David Hayes don’t express a scintilla of doubt about KA YING RISING’s chances of making it 20 consecutive wins in the Chairman’s Sprint Prize, so much so that some of the discussion relates to potential targets beyond Sunday’s big race.

Hayes says “you would have to be a wood duck” to look too far ahead before hinting that a step up to a mile could be on the cards at some point.

Meanwhile, Purton is 1-1 at Royal Ascot thanks to Little Bridge’s 2012 defeat of Bated Breath and Sole Power in the King’s Stand Stakes and says he would love to return if the right horse is available.

Legendary status

Little Bridge’s handler Danny Shum is next up in a media gathering chaired by the polished Andrew Le Jeune and he repeats the wood duck mantra, keen to see how his ageless globetrotter ROMANTIC WARRIOR copes with three dangerous global raiders in Sunday’s QEII Cup before making plans for next term.

“I think this is the strongest QEII Cup in Hong Kong for 15 or 20 years,” he says, and the fact that Masquerade Ball, Royal Champion and Sosie bring ratings of 128, 122 and 121 to the Sha Tin party tells its own story.

Reserved yet highly engaging, Shum has been part of the HK racing scene for half a century and has plotted a near-flawless course with the Warrior, rejoicing in 13 G1 scores at home and abroad and seeking advice from a Jockey Club psychologist after his pride and joy underwent surgery for a fetlock injury last year.

Shum always compares his relationship with a seemingly ageless eight-year-old to that of a father and son and summed the Warrior up simply after a morning turf workout.

“I love him and he loves me too,” he adds. “He’s a super, super legend.”

Going the extra mile

Romantic Warrior isn’t the only globetrotting eight-year-old seeking QEII Cup glory and British raider ROYAL CHAMPION – mad fresh after his runaway G1 win in Saudi six weeks ago -could never be accused of failing to go the extra mile.

Karl Burke’s gelding completes his intended spin on the AW and is eager for more, taking off going down the far side for a second time and seeming right on the edge of running away with his rider until settling somewhat from the home turn.

Burke’s representative Jack Lander understandably reports that “we won’t do much with him tomorrow” as several observers express concern about how much energy has been expended.

But this sort of incident is far from without precedent.

Star mare Via Sistina got rid of James McDonald and ‘took off for another two laps’ at Moonee Valley before her 2024 Cox Plate success, while legendary HK sprinter Silent Witness did something similar in 2005, getting rid of Felix Coetzee in his final gallop before beating Japan’s best in the Sprinters Stakes the following day.

Big in Japan…..and Britain, too?

The presence of Japan’s best sprinter, miler and middle-distance horse adds a huge amount to this year’s Champions Day and all three were in action on Thursday morning.

Connections report that high-class 1200m horse SATONO REVE “showed an appropriate level of eagerness” and the multiple G1 winner loses a shoe in a turf spin designed to prepare him for a fourth crack at Ka Ying Rising.

Last year’s Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes runner up could be Royal Ascot bound again in June, and he might not be the only Japanese visitor to the UK this summer.

The muscular JANTAR MANTAR keeps catching the eye in the mornings ahead of the Champions Mile, while MASQUERADE BALL earned a lofty rating of 128 for running Calandagan close in the Japan Cup and is all set for a QEII clash with the Warrior.

Nothing is confirmed but there is a major bonus linking the King George with the Sussex Stakes and a little bird – perhaps even that pesky wood duck – suggests that connections could be tempted if all goes well this weekend.

Old school attitudes a Barrier to progress

Hats off to the Racing Post for covering the developing row about whether British barrier trial data should be available to the punting public, though I still think my ‘Great Barrier Beef’ Tweet was that bit catchier than their ‘Great Barrier Rift’ headline.

Oliver Barnard’s welcome report concluded with the news that the BHA are considering the issue “via the appropriate channels” and it’s true to say that formalising the process in Britain would take considerable time and resources.

But in an era when betting turnover and punter confidence in the sport are struggling, the contrast between Britain and HK is jarring.

Let’s take NAUTICAL FORCE as an example.

Fourth in last year’s King George V Handicap at Royal Ascot for Johnny Murtagh, this gelding joined John Size last autumn and made a winning debut in the lucrative Class 2 handicap that closed Sunday’s Sha Tin card.

And in between he had contested twelve, yes twelve, barrier trials which were all accessible, complete with sectional times, on the HKJC website.

Similar systems are also in place in Australia, but some people seem to think that Britain should stay mired in the past. It’s embarrassing, lads.

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