Pierre Ng pressed reset with Johannes Brahms after a tough Classic Series and is excited to see what his prospect can do in Saturday’s G3 Lion Rock Trophy (1600m), especially after watching some other four-year-olds climb the ratings since March’s BMW Hong Kong Derby.
Last weekend, this year’s Classic Cup winner Rubylot and the Derby winner Cap Ferrat finished second and third over 2400m in the Group 1 Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup in another strong display of four-year-old form against open age opposition.
Johannes Brahms is coming back in distance to a mile after a sixth in the Derby, but Ng was still encouraged by the way the young stayers aimed up at top level.
“That form has been good to see,” Ng said of the overall form of Hong Kong’s four-year-olds. “We have taken a softer approach with Johannes Brahns. He is a nice horse, and it was quite a tough four-year-old series so we gave him a couple of light weeks and have given him three trials to get ready for this.”
Ng won the 2024 Lion Rock Trophy with Galaxy Patch after a second in the Derby and a fifth in the G1 Champions Mile. Galaxy Patch headed into the Lion Rock Trophy on a rating of 106 and carried 122 pounds, before adding the G3 Premier Plate (1800m) to end his season – a path that Johannes Brahms could also follow.
Four-year-olds have performed well in the Lion Rock Trophy since its inception in 2016; four-year-olds have won five of the nine runnings and in three of the last four years.
Johannes Brahms is rated 95 and will carry the bottom weight of 115 pounds with in-form Italian jockey Andrea Atzeni aboard in a race that Ng already had in mind before the Classic Series even began.
“I think he gets into this race very well at the weights and we can start building that rating up with a view to next season and some of the Group races,” Ng said. “Before the Derby we already planned this. At a mile he will hit the line well.”
Ng had been struggling through a slump of late – he had one win from his last 51 runners before Bits Superstar broke through on Wednesday night. The third year trainer, who went agonisingly close to winning the title in his second season, jumped out to a fast start this season and was still equal first in the trainers’ championship at the halfway mark with 29 wins from 44 meetings.
The 41-year-old has won just eight races from 185 starters since but his record approaching the end of his third season is still impressive.
“It is hard to back up from a big season like that and we have had more than 100 winners in a two-season stretch, which is pretty good,” he said.
Johannes Brahms, formerly trained by Aidan O’Brien, was purchased as part of a big bloodstock push into Ireland by Ng last season. This season, Ng said he is finding it harder to secure the horses he wants but he did recently have a win.
Ng managed to secure promising three-year-old Beckman out of the Ger Lyons stable via agent Shane McGrath.
A winner over a mile at Naas last time out, the same race produced this year’s Derby fourth Lo Rider last year while Massive Sovereign came out of that Naas handicap in 2023 to win last year’s Derby.
“He looks like a nice horse, that was a good win over a mile by him last start,” he said. “Things are looking good for us, we have 11 unraced horses in the stable.” ∎
