Timeform have named Hong Kong superstar Ka Ying Rising as Horse of The Year.
Ka Ying Rising was one of three locally-trained horses who successfully defended his title at the Longines Hong Kong International Races – Where The World’s Greatest Meet – at Sha Tin in December. His repeat win in the Sprint preceded those for Voyage Bubble in the Mile and Romantic Warrior who made history in the Cup, becoming the first horse to win one of the four HKIR contests four times. Did the meeting overall live up to that bold tag line? Probably not – the world’s record prize money earner Romantic Warrior beat a disappointing field in the Cup to add another two million pounds to his haul in the richest race on the card. But in Ka Ying Rising, the meeting could at least boast the world’s best horse in 2025 on Timeform ratings.
When successful twelve months earlier, New Zealand-bred gelding Ka Ying Rising was still little known outside Hong Kong. His first Hong Kong Sprint, which he won by half a length, was also his first Group 1 victory. But his profile – and his rating – had increased considerably during the course of 2025, and he retained his title in a style befitting his ‘best in the world’ status, cruising home by three and three quarter lengths with more in hand but still setting a new record time for the race over its current distance.
Ka Ying Rising became the seventh horse to win a second Hong Kong Sprint since it was first run in 1999 when it became the last of the four HKIR events to be added to the programme. The first dual winner was the Australian gelding Falvelon, followed by Silent Witness, Sacred Kingdom, Lord Kanaloa, Aerovelocity and Mr Stunning. Japan’s Lord Kanaloa was the best of those, earning a rating of 133 when winning his second Hong Kong Sprint by five lengths in 2013. Sacred Kingdom was a top-class sprinter too in his prime, rated 131 when successful for the first time in 2007, while Silent Witness (rated 129) was Hong Kong’s other standout sprinter from earlier in the century, his two Hong Kong Sprint wins in 2003 and 2004 coming over five furlongs when the race was still run over Sha Tin’s straight rather than over six on the round course as it is nowadays.
Those two Hong Kong Sprint wins formed part of a 17-race winning streak for Silent Witness, a Hong Kong record which Ka Ying Rising is now on the verge of beating. Silent Witness finally met his match when narrowly beaten attempting a mile for the first time. Golden Sixty went very close to equalling that record, completing a sequence of 16 wins when winning the second of his three Hong Kong Miles in 2021 before being beaten next time. After eight more victories in the calendar year 2025, Ka Ying Rising is himself now on a winning run of 16 races. Unlike Silent Witness, though, he doesn’t have an unbeaten record to defend as he sustained a couple of very narrow defeats in two of his first three starts. But since February 2024, nothing has been able to touch him.
In the first half of 2025, Ka Ying Rising built on his first Group 1 success to confirm himself as Hong Kong’s new star sprinter. In successive months, he reeled off wins at Sha Tin in the Centenary Sprint Cup, Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup, Sprint Cup and Chairman’s Sprint Prize. The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup showed that he was just as effective over seven furlongs as he was at six, while in the Sprint Cup, a Group 2 contest, he had to give weight to all his rivals.
It was in the Chairman’s Sprint Prize in April in which Ka Ying Rising put up his best performance in the first half of the year. Among his rivals were Helios Express, runner-up to Ka Ying Rising in his last four starts, and the Japanese gelding Satono Reve, the pair who had finished less than a length behind him in the Hong Kong Sprint four months earlier. The same two were placed again, the other way round, but this time Ka Ying Rising had a lot more in hand, quickening clear in typical fashion over a furlong out before being eased to win with more than two lengths to spare. Satono Reve had gained a Group 1 success back home since his last visit to Sha Tin, winning the Takamatsunomiya Kinen, and later put up another very smart effort in defeat at Royal Ascot when pulling clear of the rest to finish a half-length second to French gelding Lazzat in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes.
Ka Ying Rising’s win in the Chairman’s Sprint Prize also netted him a HK$5m bonus for a clean sweep in the Hong Kong Speed Series. And when the 2024/25 Hong Kong season ended in the summer, he was named Horse of The Year, becoming the first sprinter to earn the accolade since Sacred Kingdom who, like Silent Witness, won that title twice.
Before preparing to defend his Hong Kong Sprint crown, Ka Ying Rising was set a couple of interesting challenges when the new season resumed. His Australian-born trainer David Hayes pointed him at the world’s richest turf race, the Everest, run in October at Randwick in Sydney. With no other suitable prep race, connections had little choice but to bring Ka Ying Rising back in a handicap at Sha Tin on the opening day of the new season in September.
Set to concede lumps of weight to most of his eleven rivals in the HKSAR Chief Executive’s Cup, that didn’t stop Ka Ying Rising starting at his now customary odds of 1/20 and nor did it halt his winning streak after more than four months off. He won in now usual style too, putting the race to bed over a furlong out, giving 9 lb and a just over two-length beating to Lucky Sweynesse who had himself been the dominant sprinter at Sha Tin in 2023, winning the Hong Kong Sprint, and was still capable of smart form. Ka Ying Rising’s beating of Lucky Sweynesse on those terms was as good a performance as anything he achieved all year.
Both Silent Witness and Golden Sixty had compiled their lengthy winning streaks without leaving Sha Tin – Golden Sixty never raced anywhere else, in fact – but with the Everest next up, at least Ka Ying Rising couldn’t be accused of not venturing out of his own backyard. Despite the unfamiliar surroundings, Randwick’s six furlongs is run round a right-hand bend not too dissimilar to Sha Tin’s, and while Ka Ying Rising faced a different set of rivals, the Australian sprinters did not look to be in his league, so the Everest wasn’t such a mountain to climb after all.
Having travelled fluently behind a strong pace, Ka Ying Rising didn’t have to run up to his best to stamp his authority and win comfortably by a length and a quarter from the three-year-old filly Tempted, registering another victory under his regular jockey, Australian-born Zac Purton, and becoming the first overseas-trained winner of the race.
Just over a month later, Ka Ying Rising was back at Sha Tin for his Hong Kong Sprint prep race, the Group 2 Jockey Club Sprint which he had also won the year before when breaking Sacred Kingdom’s track record which had stood for 17 years. He had lowered that record again since in the Centenary Sprint Cup on his first start in 2025. Ka Ying Rising was only a fraction outside another new fastest time as he coasted to another win, conceding 5 lb all round to a field that included old rivals such as Helios Express, Lucky Sweynesse and the horse who had pipped him twice at the start of his career, Wunderbar.
All nine of Ka Ying Rising’s Jockey Club Sprint rivals took him on again at level weights in the Hong Kong Sprint, presumably just in the hope of netting some place money. Satono Reve was also back again, one of two challengers from Japan, while the other overseas runner was Charlie Hills’ veteran sprinter Khaadem, third in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on his previous start. However, he was effectively out of the race as soon as the stalls opened as one of his stirrup leathers unbuckled following an awkward start, leaving his rider Oisin Murphy without irons and trailing the field throughout.
Ka Ying Rising doesn’t usually make his own running but to avoid getting pocketed on the rail from his draw in stall one, Purton soon had him out in front where he proceeded to give an exhibition performance, travelling strongly before readily drawing clear when asked to go about his business in the straight. For the record, 112/1-shot Raging Blizzard picked up the pieces late to take second from the Jockey Club Sprint runner-up Fast Network, with Lucky Sweynesse and Helios Express close behind.
Timeform has been assessing Hong Kong’s best horses for nearly thirty years now, with ratings for that part of the world first published in Racehorses of 1997, predating the first running of the Hong Kong Sprint therefore. Ka Ying Rising’s rating of 135 makes him Hong Kong’s highest-rated horse over any distance in that time and among sprinters worldwide this century ranks him just behind Battaash, Timeform’s champion sprinter each year from 2017 to 2020, and the remarkable Australian mare Black Caviar who remained unbeaten in 25 starts, both of whom were rated 136.
Black Caviar’s CV featured a Royal Ascot win in a dramatic Diamond Jubilee Stakes in 2012 which she very nearly lost. Ka Ying Rising’s connections, on the other hand, don’t seem tempted by such a venture themselves, even though any of Europe’s Group 1 sprints would appear to be there for the taking for a sprinter of Ka Ying Rising’s class. Instead, his target away from Sha Tin will once again be the Everest in the autumn. Before then, he will almost certainly have taken his winning sequence past the record set by Silent Witness and is only 2/1 with one bookmaker to go unbeaten again in 2026 when a record third Hong Kong Sprint will be his ultimate aim.
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