‘Big Bum’, Great Swimmer: The Historic Voyage Of Hong Kong Racing’s Unheralded Hero
Ricky Yiu takes Idol Horse inside Voyage Bubble’s quest for Hong Kong’s rarely attempted Triple Crown and shines a light on the difference between “good and great’ racehorses.
IF THERE were swimming races for Hong Kong’s horses, Ricky Yiu reckons Voyage Bubble might have won even more races in the pool than he has on the track.
“He is an amazing swimmer,” Yiu tells Idol Horse. “Some horses, they just do enough when they swim, and they have their head just above the water line. But Voyage Bubble, he carries his head up high. He could swim three or four laps easily. Most of my horses swim one lap, but he swims two laps, twice a day, including every morning before he comes out to the track.”
Voyage Bubble’s deceptive size and athleticism help him power through those laps in the pool – “He has muscles everywhere,” Yiu says – but he said it is more than physical attributes that make the difference between good and great when it comes to racehorses. Yiu has trained some truly great horses – Sacred Kingdom, Amber Sky and Fairy King Prawn among them. What sets them apart from “normal” horses, Yiu says, is not their physical attributes, but their minds.
“The great ones know what they are doing and Voyage Bubble is smart,” Yiu says. “If you give him a task, he does it – fast work, slow work, swim, eat. You look at his eyes, his movement and his behaviour, this horse knows what he is doing.”
The giant digital clock near the entrance to the Sha Tin stable complex shows 5.31am. We are next to the trotting ring, five days away from Voyage Bubble’s bid for history in the G1 Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup (2400m). It is still dark but the air is heavy, the temperature is already fast approaching 30 degrees. While other horses throw their heads about, bothered by the heat and humidity, some already lathered with sweat, Voyage Bubble glides past us with purpose, neck-arched and those muscles rippling.
“Lots of racehorses can run fast, maybe flat out for about 800 metres, but the difference with a really great horse is in their minds. Switch on, switch off. This is the difference between a normal racehorse and a champion. The great ones listen to their jockey,” Yiu says.
On Sunday that attribute will need to come to the fore as Voyage Bubble attempts to become the second horse in history to capture Hong Kong racing’s rarely attempted Triple Crown.
Yiu’s previous stars have been sprinters and that is what he thought Voyage Bubble was too, right up until he shocked his trainer and the rest of the racing world with a win at $46 in the 2023 BMW Hong Kong Derby. That ability to ‘switch on, switch off’ was in full effect as Alexis Badel dropped Voyage Bubble back from the start from barrier 12 and then looped the field through the middle stages and displayed what has become another trademark – toughness in a close finish – to clinch the city’s most prestigious race.
Voyage Bubble isn’t usually described as large but his average racing weight of more than 1,220 pounds is more than 100 pounds greater than the average weight of horse to race in Hong Kong since the start of the 2010-11 season, and it ranks in the top five per cent of more than 8,000 horses to have raced during that stretch. Able Friend – a 1,300-pound-plus freak of nature – is the only horse that has been bigger than Voyage Bubble and won more.
“Look at his backside, he has a big bum,” Yiu says. “It’s the muscles on top, they sit up high, like a peach shape. Most horses don’t have a butt like that.”
Again, Yiu insists that it isn’t raw physicality that has won Voyage Bubble more than HK$90 million. Just like Able Friend, a gentle giant who could step and swerve like a quarter horse, it has more to do with how Voyage Bubble uses his body, his deft footwork and presence of mind in a race.
“His action is light, his body weight is well over 1200 pounds but if you look at him, he is lean and he moves smoothly and is light on his feet,” he says.
The trainer recalls his horse’s dramatic victory in the second leg of the Triple Crown, the G1 Hong Kong Gold Cup (2000m), when Voyage Bubble stumbled badly at a crucial stage with 800 metres to go, only to quickly regain his feet and rhythm.
“That showed his intelligence that he was able to gather up like that and then win,” Yiu says.
Voyage Bubble has spent his career in the shadows of superstars past and present – first miler Golden Sixty, then globetrotter Romantic Warrior and now even the latest headline horse, the explosive sprinter Ka Ying Rising.
On Sunday, Voyage Bubble gets a chance to do something that the trio of modern greats have never attempted, let alone completed. Even then, Romantic Warrior will steal a little limelight when he is presented in the parade ring for a “Welcome Home, Our Global Champion” ceremony.
Two disappointing runs abroad for Voyage Bubble – he was unplaced in both the 2024 Dubai Turf and Yasuda Kinen – mean that it is unlikely the horse will travel again and that his legacy will need to be shaped solely at Sha Tin. Victory over 2400m on Sunday against a genuine global star like Dubai Honour will certainly gain the horse a special place in the history books.
Joining River Verdon as the only Hong Kong Triple Crown winner should make a strong case for Voyage Bubble as 2024-25 Horse of the Year. In most seasons, his record would clinch the award easily, although Ka Ying Rising’s perfect eight-race season, including breaking the 1200m track record twice, could still hold sway with the voting panel.
Yiu was an assistant trainer to Geoff Lane in 1994 when David Hill-prepared River Verdon won the Champions & Chater Cup, then contested over 2,200m (Lane trained the seventh placegetter Fortune Duke). It speaks to a quirk of Hong Kong racing – and the fact there are only three 2400m races in the city each season – that Yiu has never trained a winner beyond 2200m. That could change on Sunday.
“We have been trying to get some stamina into him,” Yiu says of Voyage Bubble’s preparation. “In the early days he showed us that he would do well over 1200 metres so we were jumping him out, hunting him along and seeing how fast he could go. But now we are getting him to relax. He listens to the rider, he doesn’t grab hold of the bit like he used to, it’s about helping him understand how he can save his energy over that distance.”
After Voyage Bubble works through two slow laps of Sha Tin’s inner dirt track, Yiu will head back to his yard to check on his latest champion. When he does he will be approaching his stable star with caution.
“In his box he is the boss,” Yiu says. “Even I get worried when I am in the stable with him on his own, so I get somebody to hold him when I touch him and feel his legs. He is quick too and he could kick you. He is a real character. Most horses you go to their box and touch them without a problem, but he wants to watch what you are doing.
“He recognises people. If you don’t know him well, and he doesn’t recognise you, you have to be careful. Nobody approaches him from the side, you need to come to him front so he can see you.”
The 67-year-old Yiu has had a remarkable career that isn’t finished yet. He has won Group 1s in Japan, Dubai and Singapore and in 2019-20 he was crowned champion trainer of Hong Kong. Before he leaves for the stables he reflects on what a win on Sunday would mean.
“It would be a great achievement for our whole team and mean a lot for me as a trainer,” he says. “I have been doing this for a few decades now; it has been more than 50 years since I was an apprentice jockey. Up at 4am every day. Horses like Voyage Bubble make those early mornings worth it. He is a special horse.” ∎
