Well done to Tempted and Chad Schofield for beating Ka Ying Rising and Zac Purton in The Everest on Saturday. It was a terrific ride and a terrific win, but I don’t believe it makes her the better horse.
As I said last week, if Chad drew an inside barrier he could ride Tempted closer to the lead, rather than letting her settle back in the field the way she has in her recent races. He drew barrier one, he rode her handy and he won. He gambled and it came off.
Sometimes jockeys go out to try not to lose a race rather than to win it. Chad went out to win it, and what he did could easily have backfired. Tempted was the second favourite and was seen as the only realistic chance of beating the $1.04 favourite (World Pool tote). If she had been ridden closer and run out of petrol, everybody would have been asking why he changed her pattern in the biggest race of the year.
Chad also showed real conviction when it counted. Between the 600m and the 400m Tempted ran 10.84 seconds for that 200 metres, the fastest split of any horse in the race. That’s what took her from fourth to second and set up the win.
She had plenty go her way, too. It started with the barrier, but she also got the rain-affected track she loves, and her runs came at exactly the right time. The field opened up for her on the point of the turn, so she never got held up for a stride.
The wet track helped her a lot, and it definitely disadvantaged Ka Ying Rising. I wasn’t convinced going into the race that he would handle a rain-affected surface, and after Saturday I’m even less convinced.
Everybody seems to have had their say on Zac Purton’s ride, and most of them haven’t got it right and don’t understand.
Ka Ying Rising and Zac put together a 21-race winning streak by being the dominator, putting the pressure on rather than being dictated to. On Saturday, I don’t think Zac showed the same mindset he usually does at Sha Tin. I believe he was worried about the track conditions and was conscious of saving Ka Ying Rising’s energy. He would have been thinking that if he burned him too much early on the wet ground, it might cost him at the end of the race. On a good track, he wouldn’t have been thinking that way.
Obviously the race didn’t pan out the way Zac expected. He would have thought he could come out easily and slide across with Blue Door, but instead, five horses were pushing up on his inside. In fairness to Zac, nobody saw that coming. There wasn’t a speed map before the race that looked anything like what happened.
Ka Ying Rising jumped well, and if Zac had been more aggressive from there, I believe he would have got across to sit outside the leader.
People think the leading group of horses went too fast – particularly Savvy Hallie, who led after getting through the first 400m in 23.37 seconds but finished last. There was pressure to his inside and obviously David Hayes and Zac didn’t anticipate how much early speed there would be.
Ka Ying Rising went 23.79s for the first 400m – granted it was a Soft 5, and the tracks in Hong Kong are fast – but in his last 13 starts over 1200m in Hong Kong he has gone faster for the first section nine times. It’s not a perfect comparison because track speed matters, but the point is that Ka Ying Rising can muster more early speed than he did in The Everest. The point is intent – Zac wasn’t as aggressive as he normally is right from the start.
If he had been more aggressive, he could have put pressure on the horses on his inside, Ninja, Spicy Martini and Tempted, and they would have opted out of the speed battle. If he had pushed forward early, he might even have cleared Blue Door.
People have been saying the first few in the run – particularly the outsiders – went too fast and that’s why they stopped, but Tempted at the 700m was running third, on the fence, and she won the race. It’s a 1200m race and the leaders are always going to go hard.
Once he wasn’t aggressive out of the gates, Zac soon ran out of choices. After about 300 metres he was six-wide with no horse in front of him to shelter behind, and it was too late to press forward. Coming back to look for cover at that point wasn’t the wrong thing to do. It was the right thing to do. The problems started at the start. Once you’re six-wide, there are no good options. Zac had to come back and find cover – but he was simply trying to make the best of a bad situation.
By not being more aggressive, Ka Ying Rising’s best asset was taken away. Ka Ying Rising wins races by dominating and taking rivals out of their comfort zone – he might be the greatest sprinter at being able to quicken off a fast pace – and the way things happened, he didn’t get a chance to do what he does best. At Sha Tin he dictates and Zac is the dominator, but on Saturday he was dictated to.
The other factor is that Ka Ying Rising gets lost at Randwick. He doesn’t know where he is. You could see it in his barrier trial, when he was out wide away from the other horses and lost his concentration. When you ride a horse aggressively early, he has to concentrate. He hasn’t got time to look around and wonder where he is. If he was ridden more aggressively early he might have concentrated more because he wouldn’t have as much time to think and look around.
It’s also easy to sit at home and pick a ride apart. Everybody has watched the replay dozens of times from every angle, drone shots included, and we’ve spent most of the time in this column so far talking about the first 15 seconds of the race. The whole race takes 68 seconds. Zac didn’t get a replay. He had to make those decisions in a split second, with the wet track in the back of his mind.
A lot of things are out of a jockey’s control in a 1200m race at this level. If Tommy Berry hadn’t been so aggressive early on Ninja, Ka Ying Rising would have been able to sit three wide outside Blue Door, and I believe he wins the race easily. Ninja would have been better off taking a sit behind Tempted instead of being dug up to sit close – and if he had, he might have gone close himself.
Racing NSW data shows Ka Ying Rising traveled 7.3 metres further than Tempted. That, in racing terms, is three lengths. He did that on ground he doesn’t like, with everything going wrong, and one stride past the post he was in front.
Switch the barriers and Ka Ying Rising wins, and even from the same barriers, if you ran the race 10 times, I think he would win nine of them.
Even though I have been critical of Zac here – and can be very critical of jockeys overall – I still understand what Zac was thinking before the race and why he went out there with the plan he did.
Still, it’s one race Zac would want to ride over again if he could, but that is always the way when you get beaten in a race like that. You come back in and think, “I could have done something different.” Every jockey who has ridden for long enough has had that feeling.
I’ve heard somebody say Tempted is now the best sprinter in the world. I’m not sure what planet they live on. If that’s the case, why is Ka Ying Rising odds-on favourite for next year’s Everest? He definitely doesn’t go as well in Australia as he does in Hong Kong, but I want to see him back for round three against Tempted. I just hope he gets a good track this time.
Maybe before then, Tempted could come for a rematch on Ka Ying Rising’s home turf at Sha Tin? Now that would be exciting. ∎
