The Hong Kong Group One season winds up on Sunday and Hugh Bowman flies in from Japan to ride Werther, the likely Horse Of The Year and recently ranked the third-best galloper in the world for the first four months of the year.
The last horse to win the Derby, the QE II Cup, both 2,000m, and the Champions & Chater Cup over 2,400m in the same season was Vengeance Of Rain eleven years ago so there is a historical obstacle to jump for Werther and the race is famous for upsets.
Horses like Designs On Rome, Ambitious Dragon and Viva Pataca have been beaten at long odds-on in the Champions & Chater over the last decade and Sunday’s small field is tricky and competitive.
Tony Cruz trained the last three winners of the race but lost 2015 winner Helene Super Star to injury and lost Derby placegetter Giovanni Canaletto to Paul O’Sullivan, so he will saddle up only the 2014 victor, Blazing Speed.
But John Moore’s record is even better, with six previous wins and four of the eight runners on Sunday and Werther’s trainer probably is also his biggest danger. He has Derby runner-up Victory Magic with Zac Purton, Joao Moreira back on Designs On Rome and even Helene Happy Star, whose only win in Hong Kong was leading all the way at 2,400m, will have admirers as it’s a race lacking natural frontrunners.
The good short course sprinters also get their last Group race for the season, the 1,200m Sha Tin Vase, and favourite should be Moreira’s ride Amazing Kids, a huge run in defeat behind Chautauqua in the Chairman’s Sprint Trophy.
But he comes back to handicap conditions and there are some very talented lightweights engaged, including Fabulous One and Blizzard.
Moreira needs only four winners to equal his record 145-win haul from last season and he might even collect those on Sunday’s 11-race program, starting with one of his best, Arm Runda stepping up to 1,200m in the first race.
By Nathan Mody
