By Sam Turner -
Photo's ©CedricLine -
One of Hong Kong’s favourite sons, Romantic Warrior, delighted a fervent Sha Tin audience with a thrilling third successive victory in the Group 1 QEII Cup under an emotional James McDonald.
Events didn’t entirely go to plan for Danny Shum’s trainee who was trapped wide for a portion of the 2000m feature and looked to be finding the soft surface against him at the midpoint of a truly-run race.
However, McDonald managed to galvanise his mount from the 600m marker and the duo finished to great effect in the straight to overhaul Japanese contenders Prognosis and North Bridge to score by a neck and two lengths respectively.
A usually erudite McDonald was struggling for words after the success: “He was beaten at the 600m marker but he just finds a way, he’s an incredible horse.
“There wasn’t one part of the race I was happy with. He was struggling in the ground a bit, then he just took off; I’m in disbelief.
“He brings a tear to my eye this horse, I’m speechless after what he has done there.”
NO GOLDEN RETURN FOR SIXTY
Sadly, there was to be no fairytale return for Golden Sixty as the Hong Kong legend could only finish fourth in the G1 Champions Mile.
A lengthy layoff and a rain-softened track appeared to harm the eight-year-old’s hope of a fourth success in the mile feature, but his laboured defeat arguably also owed plenty to a fine tactical ride from Zac Purton who dictated modest sectionals aboard the John Size-trained Beauty Eternal.
The son of Starspangledbanner had previously looked a little short of Group 1 level in his 16-race career, but Purton’s effort in the saddle saw him step up with a career best and a comfortable one-and-a-half length defeat of Red Lion.
Referring to formulating a front-running game plan to beat Golden Sixty, Purton said: “It was the only hope we had as there was no speed in the race.
“He (Beauty Eternal) has a tendency to hang in all the time so it was good to get him down on the fence.
“I always felt there was more to come from him but he would make all sorts of mistakes in the straights in his races, but he let down better on the rail.”
For his part, Golden Sixty’s pilot Vincent Ho lamented the weather in Hong Kong on the lead up to Sunday.
He said: "He ran well. The ground was not in our favour. When I hit the straight I could already feel he could not pick up with his usual turn of foot. We can’t fight the weather. I was in a great position and everything was close to the speed, but still we couldn’t improve."
SPANGLE AN HONOURABLE SECOND
Al Quoz Sprint winner California Spangle narrowly failed to back up his Dubai victory in the G1 Chairman’s Sprint when finishing runner-up to impressive winner Invincible Sage who landed the sprinting feature for trainer David Hall and rider Hugh Bowman.
Bowman was happy to stalk the pace on the winner and, when California Spangle ran out of gas in the final 100m, the Aussie rider pounced to score by a length-and-a-half.
A delighted Bowman said: “I am so proud of him. I had a bit of success with him last season and, although the rain probably helped him a bit, I still think he would have done it on a dry track.
“He’s the quintessential HK sprinter as he’s adapted to the lifestyle and put weight on. I’m delighted to win this for David (Hall) and the whole stable.”
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