Hong Kong International Races review

You can’t eat value – but the green Octopus card that dropped out of a landmark birthday card from my chuckling first wife on Friday means I can now glide around Hong Kong’s smooth public transport system for about 20p a go.

The card gives off a higher pitched beep than usual at the Exhibition Station barrier – just to confirm its bearer is fossilised – and the 15-minute ride to Sha Tin’s racecourse station provides time to reflect on vivid images from an intense Longines HKIR week.

David Hayes and Zac Purton handling the pressure of ensuring that Ka Ying Rising delivers his dazzling brilliance to a second Sprint success with what seems like unshakeable faith.

Danny Shum and James McDonald talking about Romantic Warrior like a cherished son ahead of his bid for an unprecedented fourth consecutive Cup.

HKJC guv’nor Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges delivering a few pointed remarks at absent Aussie horsemen and leaning into headwinds faced by British racing and warning “the fragmentation of this industry is killing it."

Crown jewel Ryan Moore landing a third IJC title on Wednesday then returning my softball question about spending quality time with peers by saying “you know me, Graham, I’m not sociable."

Irish rough diamond Dylan Browne-McMonagle watching Moore shine at the Valley then taking in every second of a guided tour of the deluxe Sha Tin jockeys’ facilities the morning after.

Old pal Nick Luck gliding through assorted HKIR ringmaster duties like a silky Harrovian swan and older pal John Hunt and daughter Amy making the impossible look achievable on a memorable family day at Cheltenham.

Legacy media colleagues bumbling about realising that the influencers have got the ball now while said influencers spray the ball around like Mario Balotelli with varying degrees of success.

And as the MTR train pulls into the racecourse station, a bustling crowd don their free HKIR baseball caps and finalise punting plans without the slightest notion that two local heroes can possibly be beaten.

Rising tide sweeps all before it

And they are dead right.

I’ve been lucky enough to witness some exceptional sprinters down the years – headed by Black Caviar and Dayjur – but KA YING RISING is doing things that just aren’t supposed to happen in world-class 1200m contests.

Sent off at 1.05 in a field containing four other G1 winners, David Hayes’s elegant gelding breezes wide off the home bend and cruises clear with utter nonchalance to get within half of a second of his own track record as Zac Purton gazes at the big screen and gears down from over 50m out.

Times are secondary to getting to the line in front, of course, and ratings are only of major interest to a certain section of the global racing audience.

But putting a reliable number on the merit of an exceptional performance does matter.

Timeform have rated Ka Ying Rising as the best horse on the planet with a rating of 135 ever since he gave weight and a hiding to a smart field in the Chief Executive’s Cup on his September reappearance.

The number crunchers who compile the World’s Best Racehorse Rankings have been slower to catch on but they surely shouldn’t need a precision LONGINES timepiece to work out that this bravura performance is on a par with the very best that current leader Calandagan has achieved this year.

They’re not machines...

Well, the precision Longines timepieces are.

And so are SOSIE, Giavellotto, VOYAGE BUBBLE and Soul Rush based on their latest thrilling duels in the Vase and the Mile respectively.

Sosie finished just ahead of Giavellotto in the Arc and gets the better of a sharp tussle with his old rival again, giving Andre Fabre a record fourth Vase win and possibly creating a piece of history given that the 80-year-old French maestro goes into partnership with daughter Lavinia soon.

Voyage Bubble and Soul Rush finished first and second in last year’s Mile and repeat the dose twelve months on, with Purton galvanising last season’s Triple Crown winner to win by half a length as the pair draw clear of Irish import Red Lion and Harry Eustace’s Queen Anne winner Docklands.

Fab Four for wonderful Warrior

And so to the showpiece and a sense of inevitability the like of which is extremely rare at the end of one of the world’s great race days.

Yes, Calandagan is back in France after his Japan heroics and Aussie supermare Via Sistina stayed home after her twelfth G1 success at Flemington last month.

Maybe one or both will head to HK next year and, if they do, then the horse who has done more to showcase global racing than any other in recent times will surely be ready to welcome them.

James McDonald has described ROMANTIC WARRIOR as the heavyweight champion and Michael Jordan rolled into one during his golden run at home and abroad over the last four years.

The Kiwi ace is almost speechless as Danny Shum’s gelding, crushed down to 1.1 at the off, powers clear of Bellagio Opera to become the first horse in history to win four consecutive Cups.

And the idiot who invaded the track as the horses charged down to the winning post is looking at a night or two in the cells after being hit with a ball-and-all tackle from assistant starter Chris ‘Critta’ McMullen that rivals anything seen in the NRL or Super League.

Will you still need me, will you still read me?

McDonald and Danny Shum have unfinished business in the Saudi Cup and a rematch with Forever Young – who prevailed by a neck in a controversial finish at Riyadh in February – promises an explosive start to the 2026 Flat season.

But for the moment it’s time to digest one of the most memorable days in HK racing history.

The first five home in the Vase, the first four home in the Mile and the first three home in the Cup are all G1 winners, while Ka Ying Rising now stands level with Golden Sixty on sixteen consecutive wins with Silent Witness’s record of seventeen seemingly his for the taking in the new year.

But my unfinished business centres around a long flight home to Manchester via Frankfurt and a trip to lovely Ludlow for the Tanners Christmas Raceday on Wednesday.

Sleepy Shropshire seems a long way away as the MTR heads back to the city centre and, in an era when lengthy written pieces seem increasingly out of fashion, a modified version of an old Beatles lyric keeps coming to mind.

‘Will you still need me, will you still read me, when I’m 65?’ may not be the question that Paul McCartney had in mind.

And another shrill beep going back through the barrier at Exhibition Station reminds me that this isn’t the Green Card this fervent fossil was hoping for at one point.

But no matter. The Elder’s Pass got me to Sha Tin for half price on this sensational Sunday - and if that’s not value, then I don’t know what is.

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