At 2.07pm local time, a Hong Kong horse walked off a truck parked at Royal Randwick for a date with destiny. A horde of television cameras and camera phones were waiting, red buttons and fingers at the ready.
Did he really arrive at the course if no one was there to record it? Lights, camera, Ka-Ching.
As he shimmied down the ramp and onto the ground, the local Australian media and a mass Hong Kong contingent captured every moment. It was only 30 seconds later when everyone realised things were not what they seemed.
“That’s not Ka Ying Rising,” an Australian Turf Club official sheepishly alerted camera crews.
They’d instead been filming the Hong Kong superstar’s travelling companion, Ka Ying Cheer, whose presence in Sydney has been equally crucial and completely anonymous, except for the moment when everyone thought he was the red carpet arrival.
In the saddling stalls where horses are stationed before racing at Royal Randwick, they didn’t even have Ka Ying Cheer’s name flashing up on the electronic semaphore. It was just 117. Ka Ying Rising was allocated 118, his name beaming in bright lights above the bay, although for the hundreds camped outside the public exhibition, a chance to catch him in the flesh was brief.
With the media awakening to their erroneous ways, they had to rush to film the real Ka Ying Rising when he finally emerged, and for the next couple of hours, Hong Kong’s national hero was walked relentlessly away from the crowds before ambling to victory in the A$20 million G1 The Everest on Saturday.
At the essence of sport is champions being taken out of their comfort zone. If trainer David Hayes and the Hong Kong Jockey Club decided not to travel with Ka Ying Rising for the world’s richest turf race and The Everest was won by another Australian sprinter, it still would have been a great event because of what The Everest has morphed into. No one would have thought less of Ka Ying Rising, who already had 13 straight wins and had Hayes gushing about his “Black Caviar-like” quality.
But this was different. The champion was being challenged in a faraway land. The build-up was all on the back of him. People were talking about The Everest because of him. The risk was big, perhaps the reward bigger.
Yet it felt like this was more than just a win for Hong Kong’s national hero, it was a genuine glimpse into what global horse racing can truly be when connections have the courage to travel.
The culture clash between Hong Kong and Australian punters was fascinating. In the Asian racing mecca, the street corner tip for punt obsessives always comes back to a “sure win” – 贏硬 – yeng ngaang. They will pile into 1.2 chances if they think it’s guaranteed to salute. They’re parochial about their own.
The Australian market – and mentality – is different. Australian gamblers will walk the length of the Royal Randwick straight to find reasons why a favourite can be beat. The underdog mentality is ingrained into its culture, with an unhealthy sprinkling of tall poppy syndrome. They were always going to take Ka Ying Rising on and back one of their own.
The result was one of the greatest disparities between the fixed odds model which rules the Australian wagering landscape, and the Jockey Club’s vision for the World Pool to reinvigorate global betting.
Ka Ying Rising jumped as a $2 chance with Australian bookmakers, $1.50 on the World Pool as Hong Kong punters clambered to back him on the parimutuel. The World Pool still has a way to go convince punters of its long-term merits, but The Everest smashing all records for turnover, with more than HK$83 million (A$16.44 million) bet on a single race, shows the shared vision of Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges and Racing NSW supremo Peter V’landys has a pulse – and the intrigue travelling horses can create.
“He’s an absolute global champion and it was great to see the reception from the crowd, who recognised they were watching a global champion,” Englebrecht-Bresges said. “This is what we want to achieve with global racing and with World Pool.
“It shows that, if you bring world class racing, you can make horse racing a real global sport. But you need owners willing to take challenges and I’m really happy for the owner (Leung Shek-kong).”
There was a moment 40 minutes before The Everest when Engelbrecht-Bresges stood almost by himself in Royal Randwick’s vast mounting yard waiting for the countdown for The Everest. He was the first man at the party, almost praying no one would crash it.
He spent a total of 16 hours on the ground in Sydney. The last 16 days have felt like an eternity for Hayes and Purton, particularly when Ka Ying Rising’s barrier trial split opinion about whether he was up to winning his first start outside of his Sha Tin sanctuary.
The truth? He won The Everest on that trial morning, because everything he did wrong, lashing out at his handlers, walking around the parade in so much of a lather it was like he’d just come out of the shower, trying to keep his footing in the softer ground, Hayes knew wouldn’t happen again on raceday.
Ka Ying Rising got the Winx treatment, which is perhaps the biggest compliment he could get. There is a private stall behind the public stalls for horses which need to be kept away from the crowds at Royal Randwick. Hayes took every inch afforded to him.
“We learnt a lot from the trial and what not to do with him,” Hayes told Idol Horse. “We tried to show (him to) the crowd, but it really burnt him. We kept him calm today and he was bloody good.
“We had a rule, if he hyped up, he had to go back to the (private) box. When he’s calm, we brought him out. We had him about six times (and then he went back to the quieter corner).”
So, was Hayes truly worried about that trial?
“I wasn’t, no,” Hayes said. “But Zac carried on a bit. I just kept watching that he beat Joliestar by six and the other horse (Angel Capital) by nine – and he got upset. I knew if I could get him calm…”
He got him calm, or at least calmer. And maybe the trial wasn’t that bad, anyway, because the horse which won it, Linebacker, demolished his Silver Eagle rivals straight after The Everest and Ka Ying Rising’s rival Overpass surprisingly gripped on for fourth in the main race.
It will go down as a strange The Everest, too, because there were less than four lengths between Ka Ying Rising and Magic Time, the last of the 12 finishers.
But it will also go down as Purton’s Everest.
His wife, Nicole, was reduced to tears as her husband returned to scale. That’s how much it meant to the family, and the harsh reality is despite Purton’s other worldly efforts in Hong Kong for two decades, to Australian punters he was always going to be remembered if Ka Ying Rising won or lost this race. It’s unfair, but probably true.
Asked where the win ranked in his illustrious career, Purton said: “I would say the single biggest moment. Just because of the stature the race has got now and everything that came with it. Coming from overseas, the horse … I think it’s the single biggest moment.
“There was a lot of pressure. I understand that. The weight of the nation was on this horse today.”
Not that he was in a rush to make it back to Hong Kong, joking with Hayes and the trainer’s wife Prue after the presentation their red eye flight had been cancelled. He could only wish.
“Pressure is a privilege, but the fact we’re here and competing … we never lost sight of that fact,” Prue said. “The fact we were here and the (Hayes) boys had a horse in the race, it was a pinch yourself moment. For two generations of Hayeses to have a runner in the race was (phenomenal).”
As Ka Ying Rising’s connections spilled out of the winning owners room and into the crowd of 50,167, so too did two horses back onto a truck after a 12-month mission which was finally accomplished. Ka Ying Rising and 117 came, and they conquered.
This time, they’ll be sure to film the right one back in Hong Kong: Ka Ying Cheer will stay in Australia, while Ka Ying Rising returns to his home city a hero ∎
