Hong Kong racing form expert Luke Middlebrook reviews the Sha Tin meeting from Sunday March 15.
Training Performance of the day - Douglas Whyte
It might have been only a Class 5, but a dramatic late betting move added color to an otherwise humdrum race as Douglas Whyte’s recent stable transfer Supreme Winner finally broke through in the 1,200-meter contest.
The four-year-old went into today’s second race as an 18-start maiden and had not even managed a placing, with his best finish a fifth in July last year. Rated just 17, he was edging toward mandatory retirement at season’s end, with any horse rated 25 or lower then subject to compulsory retirement.
“I was sitting inside the weighing room and went, ‘Oh, okay, his price is coming down.’ He came down, and down some more,” Whyte said after his horse was brown lamped from 22-to-one into 6.6. “Someone knows more than me! I did express my opinion to the owners that I thought he’d finish in the first three, but I certainly didn’t see the market going the way it went.”
Ride of the Day - Zac Purton, Aerodynamics
Zac Purton won the Jockey Challenge with a double – on countback for more fourths than Alexis Badel – clinching it with Aerodynamics after an all-the-way victory in the last.
The speed map for the Class 3 2,000-meter race had Tony Cruz’s Liveandletlive seemingly set to dictate, but Purton had other plans. From barrier 11, he pinged Aerodynamics from the stalls, had the lead by the 1,850-meter mark, and controlled the tempo well enough to have something left when it mattered, winning by three-quarters of a length.
“We thought we’d be in the first three in running, but Zac made a good decision to go to the front,” trainer Mark Newnham said. “I think with the way the races have been run today, with the strong headwind down the back, it meant he didn’t get any pressure in front, but he still had to do it into the headwind, which has been hard to do.”
Horse to Follow - Mighty Masts
Mighty Masts backed up a string of encouraging runs with his first Hong Kong win in the Class 3 1,400-meter race, rewarding Chris So Wai-yin’s patience with a horse he had tried to buy before it had even started racing.
Mighty Masts arrived in Hong Kong with a record of three wins and four placings from eight starts in Australia, but So had been trying to buy the son of Merchant Navy well before then.
“I tried to buy him when he was an unraced PPG (Private Purchase Griffin), but they wouldn’t sell,” So said. “Finally, the owner of the syndicate called me and said, ‘Are you still interested in this horse?’ I said, ‘Of course!’”
Barrier 10 was a query today, So said, but James Orman rode the perfect race from the tail of the field and Mighty Masts won going away by three and a quarter lengths over that same rival that beat him by a short head last start.
