The conversation around Hong Kong’s Horse of the Year just got more interesting.
Voyage Bubble becoming Hong Kong’s first Triple Crown winner in 31 years is one thing but the emphatic way he delivered it will certainly add to his case for 2024-25 Horse of the Year.
Recency bias may work in Voyage Bubble’s favour. Before Sunday, the clubhouse leader for Horse of the Year honours was likely Ka Ying Rising, courtesy of a perfect eight-for-eight season that included four Group 1s, three Group 2s and a clean sweep of the Speed Series.
Ka Ying Rising also broke Sacred Kingdom’s long-standing track record for 1200m in the G2 Jockey Club Sprint – then broke his own record again in the G1 Centenary Sprint Cup.
Sprinters aren’t usually favoured for Horse of the Year. The last one to win the award was actually Sacred Kingdom back in 2010 and since then the sprinter to go closest was Aerovelocity when he was beaten for the award – some say unfairly – by Able Friend in 2014-15.
Ricky Yiu, who also trained Sacred Kingdom, has completed one of the greatest training feats in Hong Kong racing history with Voyage Bubble, whose only blemishes have been a first-up defeat at Group 2 level and a narrow defeat in the G1 Champions Mile.
If not for that Champions Mile defeat then Voyage Bubble might be favourite with a six-person voting panel that is made up of members of the Hong Kong Journalists Association and Jockey Club executives Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, Andrew Harding and Greg Carpenter.
Now, what about Romantic Warrior? On face value, and in many seasons, a resume that contains a G1 Longines Hong Kong Cup, a domestic Group 2 and a dominant victory in the G1 Jebel Hatta in Dubai might be enough. Unfortunately for Romantic Warrior’s adventurous connections it is likely that a neck and a nose is all that separates the horse from winning a second straight Horse of the Year title.
Romantic Warrior’s neck defeat in the Saudi Cup was as heartbreaking as it gets and a nose doesn’t express just how close the margin was in the Dubai Turf – the official photo showed it as eight millimetres. But as admirable as that sense of adventure was, and as hard as this might seem, racing doesn’t award trophies for effort, just results.
Voyage Bubble’s connections risked a lot; there were many critics of Yiu and the horse’s owners at the idea that they were even considering a shot at the Triple Crown.
Yiu had floated the idea even before Voyage Bubble was successful at his first attempt at 2000m in the second leg, the G1 Citi Hong Kong Gold Cup.
Had Voyage Bubble failed in his bid for history – and a HK$10m bonus – connections could have been labelled greedy for pushing a talented horse beyond its limits.
On Sunday night, as darkness descended on the racecourse and long after Voyage Bubble’s victory, the horse was led back to his stable from the swabbing stall. He looked ready to run another lap of Sha Tin and even let out a little kick as he walked by.
Voyage Bubble looked as fresh as when he walked on to the track for the G1 Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup and the image of him sprinting away from his rivals at the end of 2400m is one that will be fresh in voters’ minds when they decide who will be Hong Kong’s 2024-25 Horse of the Year. ∎
