The Hong Kong Jockey Club celebrates its 130th anniversary at Sha Tin on Saturday and John Size looks like using the occasion to get back in winning mode.
Size has been somewhat quiet in recent weeks, chipping away with the odd win here and there to stay in touch with the frontrunners, but it is usually during January that he starts to make his move for the championship.
Still fairly light on numbers on the weekend, Size is strong on quality, with the reappearance of some of his bigger guns in dirt sprinter Access Years (Joao Moreira), straight course sprinter Country Melody (Karis Teetan) and the hugely promising Contentment (Nash Rawiller) in the back end of the program.
For Access Years, winner of 3 of his 5 starts on the dirt 1,200m course, this is the end of the line unless Size has ambitions overseas. Saturday’s race is one of only two Class Ones on dirt for the entire season and, whether he wins or not, his rating puts him out of contention for anything else on the surface where he has looked so impressive. The same is true of one of his main rivals, Lord Sinclair, whose trainer Sean Woods is considering a trip to Dubai for the horse.
Unbeaten Contentment is only in Class Three at this stage but has been super impressive in his two starts and he will be strongly fancied to win again, while Country Melody was unlucky to lose his unbeaten tag last time from a bad draw.
The feature race is of course the cup race to commemorate the Jockey Club’s beginnings in the 19th century and Key Witness will be strongly fancied to take that out for trainer Tony Cruz and champion rider Douglas Whyte, while John Moore, Ricky Yiu and David Ferraris will use the race to unveil fresh Derby hopefuls from France and Germany.’
By Nathan Mody
