INSIDE TRACK: No poster horse for Mile and Cup, and that may be the best news of all

Every December the Hong Kong Jockey Club needs a face for the posters, and for most of the past seven years it has been the easiest decision in local racing. Beauty Generation, Golden Sixty and Romantic Warrior took turns staring out from the billboards, and nobody needed telling who they were.

The entries released this week for the LONGINES Hong Kong International Races on December 13 tell a different story. Ka Ying Rising aside, there is no obvious horse to put on the promotional material, and a few Jockey Club executives may be scratching their heads over who takes top billing alongside the champion sprinter.

Romantic Warrior has gone, leaving a well-documented gap in the local ranks and questions about where the next generation of stars will come from. But this is horse racing, and not knowing who the next champion is surely more exciting.

His departure also carries a practical blessing for the recruiters trying to sell a trip to Sha Tin. A standout like Romantic Warrior, who won an unprecedented four Hong Kong Cups in a row, made their job harder, and early entries for any feature race are more wish list than guide at the best of times. Plenty of famous names have appeared on them only to stay home. This time, more of them should make it onto the plane.

At HK$40million, or a little over US$5.1million, the Hong Kong Cup edges the US$5 million Dubai Turf as the richest turf race in the world run between 1,800m and 2,200m. It is worth more than the Cox Plate, the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick, the Tenno Sho (Autumn) and the Champion Stakes at Ascot, and the chance of winning it is greater than it has been since Romantic Warrior stormed home to win the race as a four-year-old in 2022.

Voyage Bubble has won the past two Hong Kong Miles but is eight now and entered for the Cup instead, leaving Champions Mile winner My Wish at the head of a local group that looks nowhere near as scary as in recent years.

Compare that with the Hong Kong Sprint, the one division still led by a superstar, which drew only 11 overseas entries against 52 apiece for the Cup and the Vase.

Even Ka Ying Rising has something to prove after his winning streak stopped at 21 when Tempted beat him in The Everest last month, and sprinters, for all their explosive brilliance, can have shorter careers. Silent Witness didn’t win after 20 career starts. It is easy to hope Ka Ying Rising returns at his best, but history says it is harder to be absolutely certain he will.

All of which makes November 22 worth circling, when what was once known as International Trials Day now shapes as three domestic semifinals in the BOCHK Jockey Club Sprint, Mile and Cup, each full of horses hoping to emerge as the leading local contender. Docklands, the Royal Ascot winner, has even decided to chance his hand at the prize money in the Group 2 Jockey Club Cup three weeks out from the big day.

Before that, Numbers might have something to say about the pecking order in Sunday’s Sa Sa Ladies’ Purse, even if the Vase over 2,400m may yet be his more likely target.

For much of the past decade the tension in December was whether the mile or middle distance champion could deliver on the biggest day. This year there are races to be run to decide who the champion will be, and racing’s great unknown is back.

𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓