The jockeys’ championship tussle between Joao Moreira and Zac Purton is getting most of the media attention, but the Hong Kong trainers’ title race is no open and shut affair this year and John Size will be hoping to build on his lead at Sha Tin on Easter Monday.
Size has just a 5-win break over John Moore with 22 meetings ahead, and he in turn has Caspar Fownes and Chris So three behind him and 11 wins cover the first six trainers on the ladder.
Fownes in particular is starting to look a late season threat, as his lacklustre first part of the season has given way to an increase in momentum with 7 wins so far in April, although his team on Monday looks thin.
Moore has seven runners, including strong hopes with Supreme Falcon, Invictus, Grand Harbour and Tango Fire and looks the best placed to eat into the lead of Size, who has just four runners but powerful chances with Access Years and Dehere’s The Love.
Meanwhile, the lead-up to Hong Kong’s international races on the next two weekends, the Queen Eliabeth II Cup and Champions Mile, are starting to arrive.
On Friday night, the Japanese runners for the QE II Cup are first, Uncoiled and Epiphaneia, followed on Monday by the South Africans coming from Dubai – Vercingetorix and Sanshaawes. French star Cirrus des Aigles pulled out earlier in the week, preferring to take on Treve in France next Sunday.
George Ryder Stakes winner, Gordon Lord Byron is the next to land on Tuesday, but he isn’t the headline horse of the four visitors trying to take the Champions Mile from Hong Kong for the first time – that honour belongs to two-time South African Horse Of the Year, Variety Club, winner of 16 of his 22 starts.
By Nathan Mody
