David Thiselton
The Hong Kong international race day in December is fast approaching, as is the Longines International Jockeys Championship, and race fans got a foretaste of the former with two scintillating performances by Romantic Warrior and Ka Ying Rising at Sha Tin on Sunday.
Romantic Warrior is surprisingly only rated joint eleventh best racehorse in the world on a rating of 122, but perhaps that is because the ranking period happens to a northern hemisphere time scale and runs from January until December. This great Danny Shum-trained Acclamation gelding ended last season with five successive Gr 1 wins, starting with Australia’s most prestigious weight for age race, the Cox Plate and then including three prestigious Hong Kong races, the Longines Hong Kong Cup, the Hong Kong Gold Cup and the QE II Cup, and although all four of those races were over a mile and two furlongs (2000m) he then ended the season by winning the Gr 1 Yashuda Kinen in Japan over a mile.
On Sunday he was over his favourite 2000m trip in the Gr 2 Jockey Club Cup and despite giving the whole field five pounds he cruised in by 4,25 lengths under regular rider James McDonald.
This season he is likely to defend his titles in all of the Kong King Gr 1s mentioned above.
In one of them, the QE II Cup, he will be going for his fourth successive victory. He is the only horse to have won this prestigious international weight for age race three times.
Romantic Warrior could soon become the highest earning racehorse in history.
On Sunday he took his overall record to 16 wins and three seconds from 21 starts and boosted his prize money earnings to HK$154.92 million. He is now not far behind retired Golden Sixty’s world record haul of HK$167.17 million in earnings.
Earlier on Sunday the progressive David Hayes-trained New Zealand-bred Shamexpress gelding Ka Ying Rising smashed the Sha Tin course record set by Sacred Kingdom 17 years ago. Sacred King’s record was 68.35 seconds and Ka Ying Rising lowered it to an incredible 67.43 seconds.
Ka Ying Rising jumped from draw ten under Zac Purton and was being eased down at the line, which makes the record even more special.
When J J The Jet Plane won the Gr 1 Hong Kong Sprint over the course and distance in 2010, his time was 68.84 seconds.
Ka Ying Rising will be the one to beat in the latter race next month.
He has never won a Gr 1 before, but is unexposed as he only began his career in December last year, winning on debut before running two narrow seconds and since then he has won seven times on the trot. Ka Ying Rising’s record was the second notable course record lowered in the Far East recently.
Via Sistina lowered the Moonee Valley course record over 2000m in the Cox Plate a few weeks ago to 2:01.07, beating the previous mark of 2:02.07 set by the legendary four-times Cox Plate-winning mare Winx.
Meanwhile a top class line up has been announced for the Longines IJC, which is one of the world’s most prestigious Jockeys Challenges. Unfortunately, there are no South African riders, at least yet.
The two spots still to be determined for Hong Kong-based jockeys will go to Hugh Bowman and either Karis Teetan or Matthew Poon as things stand. The latter pair are both on 14 wins of the season, three ahead of Luke Ferraris and Matthew Chadwick and there is only Wednesday’s Happy Valley meeting remaining.
The Longines IJC is the most lucrative in the world for the winning rider. The four races are worth a combined HK$7.5 million in prize money. Furthermore, a total prize fund of HK$1 million in bonus money for the most successful riders will be split three ways, with the winner set to receive HK$600,000 with HK$250,000 for second and HK$150,000 for third, respectively.
The line up for the 2024 Longines IJC is: Vincent Ho (reigning IJC champion), Zac Purton (Hong Kong champion), Rachel King (Australia), Ryan Moore (Great Britain), Hollie Doyle (Great Britain), William Buick (Great Britain), Mickael Barzalona (France), Colin Keane (Ireland), Yuga Kawada (Japan), James McDonald (NZ), TBD (Hong Kong), TBD (Hong Kong).
