From RACING POST Hong KongCaspar Fownes declared Lucky Nine "a future international performer" after the gelding landed the Group One Mercedes-Benz Classic Mile in hollow style yesterday. The margin may only have been a 1-3/4 lengths and there was encouragement for the future among those chasing him home, but Lucky Nine (Brett Prebble) was never in any real danger of losing the race."He jumped nicely, he was on the bridle early but he came back under me at the 600m - I think stepp

From RACING POST Hong Kong

Caspar Fownes declared Lucky Nine "a future international performer" after the gelding landed the Group One Mercedes-Benz Classic Mile in hollow style yesterday. The margin may only have been a 1-3/4 lengths and there was encouragement for the future among those chasing him home, but Lucky Nine (Brett Prebble) was never in any real danger of losing the race.

"He jumped nicely, he was on the bridle early but he came back under me at the 600m - I think stepping off the tempo of the 1,200m sprints he has been in and going to the different tempo of the mile, he just needed some practice again at dropping his head," Prebble explained. "But, by the home turn, he had relaxed properly and saved some energy on the circle and gave me a lovely ride. He was still a bit green going clear in the straight - a horse inside him gave him a scared and he ran away from it, but one crack to straighten him up and he finished the job. He's an exciting horse and it will take a crowbar to get me off him."

Last year's Classic Mile victor, Beauty Flash, stepped up to win the Hong Kong Mile last month and Fownes was enthusiastically forecasting a similar future for Lucky Nine.

"He is an international Group One performer of the future for sure. This was pretty much what I expected today - it has been his main target for the season all the way through and, from the handicapper's ratings, he was entitled to win the way he did," Fownes said. "All credit to Brett, who rode him a great race, and I did ask him not to really open the horse up. First time at the mile, I didn't want him bottomed out, and he was pretty soft on him."

But the welcome and well-anticipated win also brought with it some baggage as the temptation for connections must be to press on through the set weights races over 1,800m and then the 2,000m of the Derby with Hong Kong's highest-rated four-year-old.

"That's probably the biggest question Caspar might get asked all year, whether to go on stretching him out," said Prebble. "Is he good enough? Yes. Do you take that path? I'll leave that to Caspar but I won't be getting off him."