The home team throws down its cards for the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Races today at Sha Tin, with the prospect of three short-priced winners and Ambitious Dragon, Entrapment and California Memory boosting local stocks ahead of next week's announcement of the invitees. Each of the three looks an obvious favourite for the Jockey Club Mile, Sprint and Cup respectively, races which have been dominated by favourites and consistently been a guide to international day prospects. Although
The home team throws down its cards for the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Races today at Sha Tin, with the prospect of three short-priced winners and Ambitious Dragon, Entrapment and California Memory boosting local stocks ahead of next week's announcement of the invitees. Each of the three looks an obvious favourite for the Jockey Club Mile, Sprint and Cup respectively, races which have been dominated by favourites and consistently been a guide to international day prospects.
Although the Mile trial winners have always run well in the Hong Kong Mile - a race the locals have claimed for the last five years - only Good Ba Ba (2007) won both and the likelihood this year is that the race won't provide a double either, with Ambitious Dragon targeting the longer Hong Kong Cup in three weeks' time. If Ambitious Dragon (Maxime Guyon) reproduces what happened in the National Day Cup, then the Jockey Club Mile betting will only be about the time, margins and minor placings.
Still, this is horseracing. Playing devil's advocate and looking for a flaw in Ambitious Dragon today, the only thing that crops up is just how good he was first-up - it is difficult and unusual for any horse to keep pulling out that kind of performance. There is potential for a "bounce" after running fast time under a big weight like that, but Ambitious Dragon was not bottomed and did it so comfortably that it is difficult to imagine he was knocked around too much. And he has had seven weeks to get over it.
The dangers are the obvious, like Xtension, Able One and Beauty Flash, but if there is to be any surprise in the placings, it might be provided by talented but brittle Fair Trade or the Ricky Yiu Poon-fai-trained Outdoor Pegasus, who was back to his best at Happy Valley last time. In the four-year-old races last season, the latter was not far behind Xtension and Ambitious Dragon at level weights and they concede him the five pounds penalty.
Unlike the Sprint and Mile, local wins in the Hong Kong Cup have been rare, with only Precision (2002) and Vengeance Of Rain (2005) taking the race this century.
But that has not stopped success in the Jockey Club Cup or its equivalent being a solid guide to international day, as Collection and Irian have shown in the last two years in finishing excellent seconds and Viva Pataca won this race on the way to being unlucky in December twice.
www.racing.scmp.com