For the first time since 2019, Hong Kong’s milers will have a run at the G1 Hong Kong Mile this December without the formidable presence hanging over them of Golden Sixty, the all-time great who retired recently with a record of three wins and one close second in the end-of-year feature.
Golden Sixty’s vacated champion miler crown is there for the taking too, and the next two months, from Sunday’s G2 Sha Tin Trophy Handicap (1600m), through November’s G2 Jockey Club Mile, and the Hong Kong Mile itself, will go a long way to establishing which horse, if any, will be the new king of Hong Kong’s mile division.
The horse that beat the great one in the 2022 Hong Kong Mile, California Spangle, also a two-time winner of the Sha Tin Trophy, is set for a sprinting campaign.
“I think it’s still a bit of a mix, it’s up in the air for anyone to grab it if they’re capable of it,” champion jockey Zac Purton told Idol Horse.
Purton currently has the mount on last season’s G1 Champions Mile hero Beauty Eternal, and that victory places the John Size-trained six-year-old in the front line. Then there’s the Pierre Ng-trained Galaxy Patch, last season’s Hong Kong Derby runner-up who ended the term with a pair of late-season Group 3 wins, just as Beauty Eternal had done a year earlier.
Vincent Ho, Golden Sixty’s ever-present jockey, rode Galaxy Patch to those wins and believes the five-year-old has the talent to emerge as a top-level star.
“I think he can win some Group 1 races with his quality,” Ho said.
Meanwhile, trainer Ricky Yiu is confident his 2023 Hong Kong Derby hero Voyage Bubble has what it takes to be in the mix for the number one miler spot.
“It’s going to be interesting,” Yiu said, adding with confidence, “I think with Golden Sixty gone, my horse will be very competitive over a mile. I always thought this horse was a good miler, that the Derby trip was a bit of a fluke, he’s a miler.”
All three contenders will be first-up in the weekend’s Sha Tin Trophy, as will Red Lion, a gelding that improved throughout last season to place second behind his stablemate in the Champions Mile in April.
The Sha Tin Trophy is a natural starting point for the Group 1 horses, even though the conditions will have Voyage Bubble carrying 135lb as the top-rated in a field of 10, conceding 20lb to the three bottom-weights, while Beauty Eternal shoulders 131lb and Galaxy Patch has 129lb. But that’s the Hong Kong programme and part of its appeal is that the best horses have to deal with handicap conditions at times.
“There’s nowhere else for them to go,” Purton said. “They have to run in these races if they want to get a run under their belt and start to prepare for what’s going to be their first grand final this season in December. You can’t dodge it, there’s nothing you can do, you have to go out there and you know the weights are against you, and your fitness is not your friend at this stage, but you’re hoping that their class will take them as far as you want them to go, and when things go their way then they’re capable.”
Ho, too, is familiar with the challenges such a contest presents: “In these races it just depends on how the race pans out because they’re usually quite slow, not too much pace, but this time it looks like a couple of them might go forward earlier in the race and then mid-race they’ll probably ‘walk,’ so it’s then how the race will develop after that.
“You can’t discount those light-weighted horses either, some of those are in form and are carrying 115lb, so they can be competitive in these races. But I think Galaxy Patch can chase them down and he likes to be ridden that way.”
Yiu has faith in the six-year-old Voyage Bubble, too. The gelding was successful at the mile in last January’s G1 Stewards’ Cup, but well-beaten when last seen in the G1 Yasuda Kinen over a mile at Tokyo in June.
“The weight is a concern for a first-up run, but other than that it’s not a particularly strong field. I think my fellow can handle it and I’m pretty optimistic he can finish in the first two,” Yiu said.
Galaxy Patch is many people’s idea of a Group 1 winner in waiting, so in that regard the gelding finds himself in the same position as Beauty Eternal a year ago, with plenty of expectation resting upon him as the potential emerging star.
“For the international Group 1 races, I think he has that quality, we saw what he did last season and we know he’s a good horse, for sure,” Ho said.
Galaxy Patch worked through the handicap grades last term, winning four of his first five races over 1200m, was even tried at 1000m, then was Group 1-placed at 1400m, second in the Derby over 2000m, and earned his Group 3 stripes at a mile and 1800m.
“When a horse can perform at different distances like that, usually they are pretty exceptional,” Ho said. “He’s still young and still learning to race and sometimes he can over-race a little bit if he’s fresh, but Pierre manages him very well, so in a race it will make things a lot easier.”
Beauty Eternal, too, was ‘still learning to race’ at this juncture last year and he fluffed his lines a few times thereafter but still took the G2 Jockey Club Mile and ended the season a Group 1 winner.
“I always felt like Beauty Eternal had a bit more there and he hadn’t quite delivered on his promise,” Purton said. “But when he had things go his way in the Champions Mile, and he got into a really nice rhythm, I think we started to see what he can really do. Now, can he do that consistently? That’s what is going to be his challenge.
“He can just be a little bit unsettled in the gates so he’s not always the cleanest to hit the ground and sometimes that gets him half a length on the back foot. It just takes getting a little bit of a squeeze, and he’s getting a feel and then over-races and does a few things wrong. That means he can’t finish the race off as well as he did that day when he won the Champions Mile, but when the speed is there and he’s in a nice rhythm and he breathes beautifully and just rolls where he’s comfortable, well, he’s obviously a top-line horse.”
Purton believes the Size stable’s highest-rated galloper is showing signs that he might be a little more mature this term.
“I think his demeanour so far this season suggests that mentally he is handling things a little bit better, but he’s a bit of a different beast on race day, he comes alive. So we’ll wait to see what we get on game day first before I start to feel too comfortable with where he’s at.”
Yiu has no such worries with Voyage Bubble.
“He has had a good preparation, I’m very happy with him, he’s done the two trials and I was pleased with that,” he said. “You can see by his recent trials, they were promising, and he’s still on his way up. He’s a good doer, he loves his work and always finishes his feed, he’s an easy horse to handle.”
Yet Voyage Bubble did not enjoy his two races overseas last season, so Yiu is not considering another foreign raid at this stage.
“He didn’t enjoy going anti-clockwise, so for the time being we’ll keep him in Hong Kong,” he said.
But thoughts of foreign ventures are a long way off anyway. There’s a Hong Kong Mile on the line, and the chance to establish championship credentials on the Hong Kong circuit and the Sha Tin Trophy will, as usual, play its part in providing a first step towards those aims.
“What’s most important for us is the horse having a positive run and showing us what we need to see for those important races that are coming up,” said Ho.
And those words spoke for everyone: it’s the Hong Kong Mile that counts ∎