David Eustace has Royal Ascot in mind for Colourful King, but bold plans only matter if the horse can pass a 1,200m test at Happy Valley on Wednesday night and justify the ambition attached to him.
Colourful King is the highest-rated runner on the card at 100, but all five of his wins have come at 1,000m. Wednesday’s Class 2 over 1,200m asks a different question, and it is the question Eustace needs an answer to before thinking seriously about taking on the world.
“It is the question mark, isn’t it?” Eustace said of the distance. “He’s run well there without winning and the program forces us to try again. He’s only just been beaten over 1200m, I think you couldn’t say he doesn’t see it out, but it’s probably right on the limit of what he wants.”
Colourful King has raced three times at 1,200m and has not disgraced himself, placing twice at tonight’s course and distance and running a close-up seventh at Sha Tin when a check at the 100m stopped him finishing closer.
Zac Purton has ridden him in his last three runs for a win and two placings, and it is Purton’s feel for the horse that has put Royal Ascot on the table.
“I hugely respect Zac’s opinion when riding horses like that, he knows how they feel under him, and the feeling he’s had on a couple of occasions down the straight under him has been really impressive.
“He’s a tricky horse because he needs a relatively unusual set-up, you’ve got to ride him cold over 1000m which is not really how you are going to win: you’re going to lose more than you win even with a progressive horse.
“Anyway, Royal Ascot is a long way off, but having said that, probably the reason we’ve spoken so much about it is because there aren’t many high level opportunities down the straight in Hong Kong.”
If Colourful King continues to progress, Eustace would aim his horse at the Group 1 King Charles III Stakes (1,000m) on Day 1 of Royal Ascot next year.
Royal Ascot carries extra meaning for Eustace. If he can get there and win, he would become the third direct member of his family to do it after his father James, who won the 1998 Royal Hunt Cup, and his brother Harry, who scored last year with his first Group 1 at Royal Ascot last year when Docklands won the G1 Queen Anne Stakes. Even his uncle David Oughton won what was then known as the Golden Jubilee Stakes in 2005 with Hong Kong sprinter Cape Of Good Hope, when the race was run at York during Ascot’s redevelopment.
Eustace feels Colourful King may be a few points better than his rating after being unlucky not to win again down the straight this season, but he concedes that giving weight away to progressive horses below him makes the job tougher.
He carries top weight of 135lb and renews rivalry with Mark Newnham’s fellow four-year-old Crimson Flash, who he beat down the straight three runs back by a length and a half.
Colourful King carried 119lb to Crimson Flash’s 115lb that day, but this time he meets him 11lb worse off.
“Definitely have to factor in the weight swing, being worse off this time from when they last met. Crimson Flash is not an old horse, and he’s not had a lot of racing, and he’s still on an upward trajectory. I thought he trialled very well the other day, so undoubtedly he’s the main danger.”
Since they last met, Crimson Flash went on the Classic Mile path and finished 11th. Newnham said it was ambitious, but he had the rating to be there, and he now returns to Happy Valley’s 1,200m where he has two wins from three starts.
