Not many young horses make their all-weather debut as impressively 

Not many young horses make their all-weather debut as impressively as the John Size-trained Hypersonic did last start and he looks to hold a mortgage on today's trophy race at Sha Tin - the Kowloon Cricket Club Centenary Cup (1,200m), reports the HK Racing Post.

It says: Hypersonic (Douglas Whyte) had performed strongly in trials prior to his race debut in March and was sent out a warm favourite before getting the job done.

But many fans must have been wondering what all the fuss was about despite the win, as Hypersonic battled to beat the well-tried Viva Dolphin by only a head over the turf 1,200m course after sitting handy and appearing to have everything go well in the run.

As a result, Hypersonic was allowed to go out at his next start at odds of 5.9 when drawn wide on the all-weather sprint course and, this time, we saw the three-year-old who had been expected first time out.

With good speed in the race, Whyte elected to take the son of Darci Brahma back past midfield from his outside gate and give him time to find his feet.

Hypersonic was still well back turning into the straight but that didn't last long. He produced the kind of acceleration only decent horses possess and took himself from the rear to tackling the leaders in a twinkling and the race was all over well before the post. This time Hypersonic goes up to Class Three but he faces a field populated mostly with well-exposed horses going nowhere and he is by no means harshly weighted on 124 pounds.

He is better drawn in gate one but, depending on how the all-weather is playing, Whyte may not want to overuse it to be too close after the way Hypersonic went last time when ridden quietly.

That was also how he was ridden in his Australian trials, when Hypersonic caught the eye getting home strongly and matching the finish of a horse called Hvasstan next to him. Hvasstan has gone on to be one of the better three-year-olds over middle distances.

Hypersonic may also be getting over a little farther as time goes on but however he appears to have too much quality for this field. He will be at short odds and punters might have to look for the quinella to squeeze anything from the race.