The four-year-old Group One series gets underway on Sunday at Sha Tin and John Size holds the Classic Mile with a strong grip, saddling up the two favourites, Thewizardofoz and Sun Jewellery.
Joao Moreira has preferred to ride Thewizardofoz and guaranteed him favouritism, but Size has snapped up Ryan Moore for Sun Jewellery so he won’t be lacking a world class jockey.
The Classic Mile at 1,600m is the first of three classic races – in Hong Kong open to four-year-olds instead of three-year-olds as a fairer contest due to the horses being a mix of northern and southern hemisphere-breds.
From this race, some will go to the Classic Cup over 1,800m in a month and then many to the 2,000m Derby a month later.
Interestingly, Thewizardofoz, Sun Jewellery and two of their strong rivals, Lucky Bubbles and Blizzard, all have yet to run at 1,600m so the Classic Mile is a first hurdle for them heading towards the Derby.
John Moore has imported Hugh Bowman to ride one of his four runners, Werther, who hasn’t started since a winning debut international day over the course.
Moore’s season has been glacier-slow to get going – topical for Sunday, forecast to be one of the coldest in years with temperatures well under double figures – but the reigning champion is chipping his way up the ladder now, and has a solid team this weekend as he looks to increase the pace.
Dirt specialist Sure Peace looks hard to beat, as does Moore’s Derby hopeful bypassing the feature, Victory Magic, and promising three-year-old People’s Knight will be favoured to win the last of eleven races. He also has some lightly-raced and debuting four-year-olds sprinkled through the other races with a view towards the Derby, like White Magic, Helene Paragon and Rapper Dragon.
By Nathan Mody
