Shane Dye saw enough from Ka Ying Rising’s trial on a Soft 7 to suggest a similar track on raceday could be a concern, not least because his key rival Tempted has an outstanding record on rain-affected ground.
After watching Ka Ying Rising’s trial at Randwick on Tuesday, I think a rain-affected track is the biggest concern for him in The Everest.
He trialed on a track rated Soft 7 and was beaten by Ninja, one of his Everest rivals. David Hayes summed the performance up as “better than last year, but not as good as he can go”. That’s about right.
I’ve read that David has seen him trial well on a Soft 7 before he came to Hong Kong. But trials and racedays are two different things. In a trial there isn’t much pressure and a horse can travel comfortably on a wet track. On raceday you have to test your horse, and sometimes they don’t handle the wet ground as well as you thought, because now they’re under pressure.
The biggest factor is Tempted. The heavier the track gets, the more it brings her into play.
She ran second to Ka Ying Rising last year, and she hasn’t been beaten since. She carries more weight – five and a half kilograms more – this time, because she is now four, but she has improved.
Horses like different tracks. It’s a bit like Happy Valley and Sha Tin in Hong Kong, where some horses go better at one than the other, or some go better on the dirt than the turf. Tempted loves Randwick. It’s a big track by Australian standards with a testing straight, and her style of racing suits it. She has raced on rain-affected ground there. She’s had four starts on rain-affected tracks for four wins, two of those at Randwick.
On a good track, the way I line them up, Ka Ying Rising has two or three lengths on Tempted, and Tempted has two or three lengths on the rest. But a wet track takes away a horse’s brilliance most of the time. That’s where she could close the gap, because we haven’t seen what Ka Ying Rising can do on a very wet track.
There’s one bonus for Ka Ying Rising fans in Hong Kong if it rains: he will start at better odds. On a good track he’ll be $1.20 or $1.30 and he won’t get out at all. If it’s heavy, I think he can get out to $1.50 or $1.60.
We saw this last year. Realistically he should have been about a $1.30 chance, but because he trialed poorly and the Australians didn’t believe in him, he got out to $2.10 before the race and started $1.50 on the World Pool. The local punters took him on, and he beat them.
This time they know not to overreact to a Ka Ying Rising trial. But Tempted and her ability on wet ground mean she will attract plenty of support. The more it rains, the more she will firm in betting. The drier it stays, the better it is for Ka Ying Rising.
The bottom line is that you need Ka Ying Rising to fail if you want to beat him. His sectionals are so good that it’s mathematically impossible otherwise.
Tempted isn’t the only one who wants rain. Jimmysstar and Headwall both like wet ground too. I saw enough on Tuesday to say I’m not convinced Ka Ying Rising wants a wet track, and we know his rivals do.
The Australians will be doing rain dances all week.
If you watch the trial again, look at Ka Ying Rising’s ears coming around the turn. They were moving around, flicking forward and back.
When a horse does that, he’s having a look at things and taking it all in. Randwick is still new to him, and he doesn’t really know where he is out there.
That’s actually a good sign. A horse moving his ears like that still has more to give. It means he isn’t doing as much as you think, and he isn’t going his fastest.
The part I didn’t love was when Zac clicked him up on the outside to ask for more effort, there didn’t seem to be a lot there, which was the same as last year. In Hong Kong he just dashes clear in a trial. Zac definitely tested him on Tuesday, and Ninja trialed a bit better. That doesn’t mean Ninja will beat him on raceday. Last year Ka Ying Rising ran third in his trial and then beat the horses that had beaten him in the barrier trial.
There were positives too. He looked better in the parade ring and didn’t sweat up as much, and his action was better. Last year I put his runs side by side on my screens, and he wasn’t striding as freely as he does in Hong Kong. Even in The Everest, if you watch him at the furlong, he wasn’t taking that huge stride like he normally takes. That’s why he never got right away from them.
He is going better this year. But I am now convinced he doesn’t bring his ‘A game’ to Australia. Even so, if he improves from the trial to the race in the same way he did last year, he’ll win. He’s a freak.
If I was riding Ka Ying Rising in The Everest, I would feel no pressure at all. He jumps, and he either leads or sits second or third just outside the leaders. Zac knows exactly what he’s doing. It doesn’t matter what barrier he draws, one or 12, because he has so much natural speed. The barrier is irrelevant for him.
Chad Schofield on Tempted is a different story. He’s the one with the big decisions to make, and the barrier draw on Tuesday will make a lot of his decisions for him.
Tempted is a backmarker. We saw it again on Saturday at Randwick: she loves to relax back in the field, switch off and then unleash that devastating sprint. Most good horses that sprint like that can only do it because they’ve saved their energy early in the race. That’s the balance every rider of a backmarker has to get right. The further back you sit, the more energy you save, but the more ground you have to make up, and the more you need the race to be run in your favor. You need a good pace up front so the leaders tire and you need a clear run in the straight.
Against most horses, that works. Against Ka Ying Rising it doesn’t. As I wrote last month in this column – he does it at both ends. He races on the pace and then quickens off a fast pace, and that’s what breaks his rivals. It puts Schofield and Tempted in a tough situation because Ka Ying Rising’s final sectionals are just as good, if not better. If she sits back and runs her normal race on a dry track, she’ll hit the line hard, but he’ll be six or seven lengths in front of her at the top of the straight. That’s why I say it’s mathematically impossible to beat him from there unless he has a bad day, and we haven’t seen him have a bad day yet. You could argue that even on his bad day – maybe his worst day – he still won The Everest!
So Chad has to decide how close he wants to be. If he pushes forward to stay within striking distance, he gives himself a chance to win. But she burns energy early doing that, and she can’t finish as well as she normally does. It’s a gamble either way.
That’s where the barrier comes in. If she draws wide, Chad has no choice. He has to go back, because pushing forward from an outside gate burns too much energy. If she draws in, he might say, right, I’m going to gamble and ride her a bit closer, and not get so far back.
Wet ground changes all of that – Chad can ride with more confidence if it rains. On a heavy track I wouldn’t go forward on Tempted at all. We’ve seen what she can do on wet ground coming from back. You’d be gambling that Ka Ying Rising won’t handle it well enough to get away from you at the 300 meters and put seven lengths on you. If you go forward on a heavy track, it can take that sprint away from her. And on a wet track, 1200 meters feels more like 1300 meters, because you’re getting through heavy going the whole way.
The other thing that changes on a wet track is where the winners come from. On a good track you hug the rail and save ground. On a wet track you might want to be six or seven wide, because they often come down the middle of the track where the ground is better. We won’t know the bias until we’ve seen a few races on the day, but by The Everest the jockeys will know which part of the track is best.
The bottom line hasn’t changed. To beat Ka Ying Rising, you need him to fail, and there’s more chance of that happening on a wet track. Chad knows his horse can handle it. Nobody knows yet whether Ka Ying Rising can.
This article first appeared in Idol Horse as "Ka Ying Rising trial reaction: Could wet weather beat the champ?".
