With the Group races run and won, we take a look at the best performance, comeback, ride and training performance and biggest controversy.
Best Performance — Ka Ying Rising, Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup (1400m)
Imagine having a horse so good that your pre-race instructions before a Group 1 are "go and break the track record." That is the privileged position David Hayes finds himself in. Ka Ying Rising claimed his 18th consecutive victory, surpassing Silent Witness's record of 17, and ran the 1400m in 1m 19.36s – shattering the Sha Tin course mark of 1m 19.92s. Hayes told Zac Purton not to sit up late, to run him through the post and see how strong he was at 1400. He was three and a half lengths clear of a quality field. The absurdity, as Hayes noted in passing, is that he was the youngest horse in the race: the baby of the sprint ranks is also its bully. Ka Ying Rising later pushed the streak to 20, breaking his own track record again in the Chairman's Sprint Prize to close a perfect season.
Best Ride — Joao Moreira, Premier Plate; Hugh Bowman, BMW Hong Kong Derby
Moreira's season-closing winner on Beauty Joy in the Premier Plate was a Magic Man special - conjuring a personal best out of a headstrong nine-year-old. But the prestige ride of the season belonged to Hugh Bowman in the BMW Hong Kong Derby aboard Invincible Ibis. The Derby is the race punters remember and the one that makes careers and breaks hearts. Bowman's ride was a masterpiece of timing and nerve – he was patient where others panicked, then decisive when the gap appeared. The Four-year-old Classic Series builds toward that single afternoon: Mark Newnham’s training performance was minute-perfect and Bowman judged his ride to perfection on the day it mattered most.
Best Training Performance — Danny Shum Chap-shing, Romantic Warrior
The numbers belong to David Hayes, who kept Ka Ying Rising unbeaten. But the training performance of the season was Shum's, and it had nothing to do with strike rates, streaks or prize money. When Romantic Warrior’s serious leg injury required surgery, Shum's famously intense work ethic gave way to something darker – three months he later called the toughest of his life, telling his wife he was ready to resign rather than watch his horse suffer. To bring Romantic Warrior back – first up over 2000m, then winning the Hong Kong Cup second-up – required more than horsemanship; it required Shum to climb out of his own dark months and trust the horse would tell him when he was ready. Honorable mention to Manfred Man Ka-leung, who returned Lucky Sweynesse to the winner's circle in the Chairman's Trophy. Newnham’s progression of Invincible Ibis from maiden to Derby hero was the best body of work. But this season’s feel-good story belonged to Shum and his warrior.
Biggest Controversy — James McDonald, Champions & Chater Cup
A Triple Crown coronation should have been a clean celebration of one of the greats. It wasn't. McDonald was found guilty of careless riding after directing Romantic Warrior into Deep Monster's line 300m out, picking up a three-meeting ban and a HK$120,000 fine. But it was what went unmentioned that lit the fuse – a raised elbow that escaped sanction in the stewards' report sent social media into meltdown and soured an afternoon that should have belonged entirely to the horse. The debate over whether the charge should have been improper riding only deepened it: the stewards' own report said McDonald "directed his mount in," language that implies intent, yet the lesser charge stood. That McDonald did not front the press afterward – on a day that should have been a celebration – was a disappointing footnote to one of the finest hours of an all-time great.
