Zac Purton has become Ka Ying Rising's harshest critic – but Sunday left him with one word: "Wow."
Asked if it was the best the champion sprinter has ever gone, Purton didn't hesitate.
"Well, the time says it is," he said. "You can't say it is not. To give twenty pounds away to the rest of the field, and to give them a hiding, and run the time that he did – it is freakish."
Purton had been openly critical of Ka Ying Rising's two lead-up trials, frustrated that the horse wouldn't change its leading leg. There was no such issue in the Chief Executive's Cup, where the sprinter conceded 20 pounds to his rivals – carrying 135 to their 115 – and smashed his own track record by nearly a second, clearing out to the biggest winning margin of his career.
Purton, chasing a 10th jockeys' championship and a sixth in a row, rode another winner on the card, Lightness of Music for trainer Danny Shum Chap-shing, to sit atop the standings after a single meeting.
"What a way to come back and start the season, to have him to look forward to," he said.
His focus, though, is already on Randwick and October 17. Purton admitted he deliberately eased his star through this race last year with a view to The Everest – and the horse paid for it once he got there. Purton said Ka Ying Rising cut corners in his Australian barrier trial and was below par on raceday. Overall, Purton believed the horse was never quite operating at his sharpest through the lead-up and that once the horse reached the quarantine facility in Sydney, he simply switched off.
"He got down there and he thought he was on holidays – that was the mode he was in," Purton said. "I just wanted to make sure he was a bit more ready this time and give him more of a hit-out."
Ka Ying Rising still won The Everest, but this time Purton wants more than a repeat, he wants a statement.
"He's already won an Everest – we can't ask anything more of him," he said. "But I would like him to go down there and put on a performance that people are going to remember."
