Ka Ying Rising was the third horse into the Sha Tin parade ring before Sunday’s G1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize, and that’s the only place any horse can get a run on him. The old saying, ‘Eclipse first, the rest nowhere’, has been doing the rounds since the late 18th century, but it’s a proverb Ka Ying Rising is taking as his own.
His clockwork ability to win had the Sha Tin faithful onside long ago. They can be a tough crowd, but when they take one to heart, they give their support vocally and back it from their pockets. Sure enough, when Zac Purton was legged up for the big sprint, the paddock-side fans shouted and whooped their support; when they reached the track for the post-parade, the rail-side fans waved flags and cheered, and the prices on the big screen showed the depth of expectation.
Ka Ying Rising was showing as a $1.0 favourite – again – and Satono Reve, a two-time Group 1 winner, Japan’s best in the division, a Royal Ascot runner-up, was the second pick at a massive $84.0, drifting out to $90.0.
A total of HK$97 million (US$12.3 million) was bet in the win pool and HK$94 million (US$11.9 million) of that went on Ka Ying Rising, whose odds the Hong Kong Jockey Club again shifted to the minimum $1.05 dividend to make race fans’ bets worth the investment.
Horse racing is fundamentally about proving which horse is the best: the debate, the dividing of opinion, the money wagered on a viewpoint, and the proving or disproving, are all at the heart of what makes the sport turn.
There are those around today who will say Frankel first, forget the rest. The argument is compelling when the great unbeaten European champion’s form is balanced along with those barely-believable performances he put up in the early years of the previous decade – from 1400m to 2000m. The sparingly seen Flightline also has his acolytes, so too Deep Impact, as do Winx and Black Caviar.
Sprinters invariably rank lower in esteem than horses racing in the ‘classic’ range of distances from a mile through a mile and a half, but Ka Ying Rising is different. The debate has now moved beyond ‘best sprinter’ talk, as it must.
“He’s one of the all-time greats, I think,” his trainer David Hayes said after the gelding took his unbeaten streak to 20 wins with another track record, another cruise to the line, Purton motionless in the stirrups.
“A long time ago I thought he might be the best horse I’ve trained; about a year ago I thought he’s definitely the best horse I’ve trained, and now I think he’s one of the best horses I’ve ever seen.”
Ka Ying Rising had just clocked 1:07.10 for the Sha Tin 1200m, another track record, and he had done it on the bridle, more than four lengths ahead of Japan’s champion sprinter Satono Reve in second. It was the unreal made real – again.
“We’re in the midst of something really special now,” Purton told Idol Horse as he left the track for home, suited, pulling along his kit with one hand, a boxed trophy in the other.
There was talk post-race of the international handicappers putting Ka Ying Rising up to a rating of 130 or higher. Rightly so.
“It’s generally hard to put big margins up in sprint races, because you don’t have enough time to do it,” Purton said. “Over a mile, a mile and a quarter and a mile and a half, you can, because you get a lot more time and you can stretch them out. Over sprint distances, you can’t, but he does.”
But Ka Ying Rising is not the only champion doing incredible things out of Sha Tin. Romantic Warrior is one of the old men of world racing now, yet the eight-year-old’s performances are as fresh as the day four years ago when he won his first G1 QEII Cup: today was his fourth, a win of brilliant professionalism, the hallmark of a career that has received plaudits internationally thanks to wins in Australia, Japan and Dubai, and second in one of the century’s epic races, the G1 Saudi Cup, when he took it to the world’s best dirt horse – a fraction too early, perhaps – and gained admirers in defeat.
Romantic Warrior probably still doesn’t get the full recognition globally that he deserves, though, just as Ka Ying Rising hasn’t received the full range of appreciation internationally that his mammoth talent demands. Yet those who know both these geldings know.
It’s not often a jockey runs second in a Group 1 race and walks back to scale with a smile on his face. Joao Moreira did. He knew he had given Satono Reve his chance, his horse had given his best against Ka Ying Rising, but that best was only good enough for a distant second.
“I tried to come there and give him a challenge, but it’s so hard to challenge probably the best sprinter in the world in the last 20 years,” the Brazilian told Idol Horse as he returned to the weighing room, referring to the move he tried to make to press Ka Ying Rising off the home turn. It’s doubtful that Ka Ying Rising even noticed.
“He left us for dust,” Moreira added.
And after Japan’s great QEII Cup hope Masquerade Ball – G1 Tenno Sho winner and G1 Japan Cup second, no less – had chased hard but in vain to finish second to Romantic Warrior in the 2000m feature, his jockey Christophe Lemaire gave a lyrical appraisal.
“Time has no power over Romantic Warrior,” Lemaire said. “Even as he gets older, he is still as good as he was three years ago, he knows his job so well: he jumps well, then sits, and then accelerates.”
Romantic Warrior’s jockey James McDonald said he was “worried” about facing a horse of Masquerade Ball’s calibre and reputation. The Japanese horse – destined for the G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July after pleasing connections here – chased the local hero down the home straight in a blazing 21.67s, that’s 200m splits of 10.72s and 10.95s, but couldn’t catch the champ.
“It was touted to be his toughest test,” McDonald said. “But he’s a dream come true for us. He makes a jockey’s life so easy, he makes things happen that other horses don’t.”
Or, as Romantic Warrior’s smitten trainer Danny Shum put it, “He’s a super, super, super champion.”
Champions Day was a three-Group 1 affair though, so it was My Wish’s misfortune to have his first Group 1 win, in the Champions Mile, land smack between the victories of two exceptional champions at their peaks.
Not that trainer Mark Newnham or jockey Hugh Bowman saw it that way. My Wish was the market’s well-supported second pick behind the race favourite, Japan’s champion miler Jantar Mantar. The five-year-old charged from deep to win the race by a neck from Cap Ferrat, reversing their placings in last year’s Hong Kong Derby, and the Japanese raider well-beaten.
“He’s won with authority,” Bowman said. “We were confident going into the race … It was there for everyone to see what he’s capable of when I let him go. It was no surprise to us.”
The surprise – or not – was Jantar Mantar’s capitulation for the second time in as many starts at Sha Tin. He arrived, though, as Japan’s star at the distance, having won all four of the Japan Racing Association’s (JRA) mile Group 1 races open to him across his career.
But he looked ill at ease in the high afternoon heat, sweating between the legs and under the saddle cloth, his tongue flicking at the bit in his mouth, agitation building, his odds lengthening just before the off. When he missed the kick, was urged on and over-raced behind a swift tempo, it was game over.
While Jantar Mantar misfired, the Champions Mile result showed that although Romantic Warrior is ageing and another old guard hero Voyage Bubble’s career might be close to the end after his fifth place, there is hope in Hong Kong’s rising crop, not least My Wish and this year’s Hong Kong Derby winner, the Newnham-trained Invincible Ibis in fourth.
“I was proud of both horses,” Newnham said. “Invincible Ibis, when he comes back next season, he’s going to acquit himself well in this grade. My Wish has taken a season and a bit to win his Group 1 but the way he’s going now I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.
“I know tomorrow morning, when I get to the stable, they’ll all be buzzing, they’ll all be smiling and it’s a reward for everyone’s hard work.”
It will be the same at the Hayes and Shum stables, no doubt. Hong Kong has the privilege of being home to two of the world’s great racehorses – great in the deeper sense.
Ka Ying Rising is showing time after time he’s one of the best there has ever been anywhere: the argument is no longer that he’s the best sprinter around, it’s that he’s the best in the world: no qualifiers.
“The scary thing is, they go at that speed and they go that quick but he finds that extra gear that it shouldn’t be possible to do,” Purton said. “But he does it and he seems to do it with a certain amount of ease.
“A lot of times, I’m just letting him glide the last furlong, I’m not asking him for anything – not that I think he’s got anything extra to give, but I’m certainly not getting to the bottom of him all the time.”
If Ka Ying Rising continues on, to another Everest win, another perfect season to come, when the greats are discussed 50 years from now, will his name be in the mix alongside the revered likes of Eclipse, Frankel, Phar Lap, Secretariat? Time will tell, but right now, he’s doing incredible things, and his Hong Kong fans are loving him for it. ∎
