There is a particular energy about Sha Tin at this time of the year. All 23 of our trainers have now returned to trackwork ahead of the new season. Our jockeys are filtering back too – Jerry Chau, fresh from his Shergar Cup heroics at Ascot, resumed riding work this week. Season Opening Day at Sha Tin on Sunday, 6 September, no longer feels distant.
A new season brings new faces, and a welcome addition to our ranks is Australian James Cummings, who led his stable team in their pre-season bai-sun ceremony at his yard in Sha Tin this week. Around 200 people were in attendance – jockeys, owners and stable staff. It is a tradition that means a great deal here, particularly when a stable is drawing its first breath.
James has been with us since November, settling his family into life in Hong Kong and preparing his yard, and now has 35 horses in his care. He has been admirably clear-eyed about the task at hand, speaking of adapting to our system and of taking time with his newly transferred horses. That patience, from a fourth-generation horseman with 52 Group 1 winners to his name, tells you something about the man.
It is always encouraging to see a new trainer arrive with such enthusiasm, and James’ international experience will add another dimension to what is already a very strong training community in Hong Kong. I look forward to seeing how his stable develops as the season progresses.
Elsewhere, James Orman rode a winning double at Eagle Farm in Australia on Wednesday (12 August), one of them aboard BEAT THE RAP, trained and owned by his mother, Caroline Allardyce. There cannot be many better ways to spend a break. He flies back to Hong Kong this weekend, and will be keen to improve on his impressive tally of 32 winners in his first full season with us.
The week brought sadder news from Europe with the retirement of BOW ECHO following an injury sustained after his dramatic victory in the G1 Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood, ending a career of six wins from six starts. He took the 2000 Guineas, the St James’s Palace Stakes and the Sussex Stakes in a single season – a feat managed by only five horses before him, the last of them FRANKEL in 2011. My sympathies go to his trainer George Boughey, to Billy Loughnane, who rode him in all six starts, and to the team carrying on the legacy of the late Sheikh Mohammed Obaid. Racing is poorer for not seeing BOW ECHO in action again.
I will be in Deauville myself this weekend. Saturday (15 August) brings the Hong Kong Jockey Club-sponsored meeting, featuring the G3 Prix Gontaut-Biron Hong Kong Jockey Club and the Prix du Champ Durand Hong Kong Jockey Club – a partnership with France Galop we value greatly. I will also spend time at Arqana’s August Yearling Sale, one of the most important dates in the European bloodstock calendar, and will be trackside on Sunday (16 August) for the G1 Aga Khan Studs Prix Jacques le Marois (1600m), carded as S1-4 at 9.50pm (Hong Kong time).
BOW ECHO was entered for the feature, and his absence, along with that of GSTAAD, has blown the race wide open.
There is a nice thread running through this year’s renewal. In 1998, Yutaka Take partnered SEEKING THE PEARL to Japan’s first Group 1 win beyond its own borders, in the Prix Maurice de Gheest; a week later, TAIKI SHUTTLE took this race. Take returns on Sunday at 57, fresh from becoming the oldest jockey to win a Group 1 in Japan, aboard SIXPENCE – winner of the Yasuda Kinen, the very race TAIKI SHUTTLE won before his Marois triumph. SIXPENCE is a strong place chance.
PRECISE will be one of the market leaders for Aidan O’Brien, chasing back-to-back wins after DIEGO VELAZQUEZ last year. Winner of the Irish 1000 Guineas and the Coronation Stakes, she comes here beaten by BLUE BOLT in the Prix Rothschild over this same straight mile course on 2 August, and receives the three-year-old fillies’ allowance. She is a win and place chance.
So too is THESECRETADVERSARY, who stays here rather than going to York after his G1 Prix Jean Prat success. RAYIF (Mickael Barzalona) is out for quick revenge on that rival for Francis-Henri Graffard, who took last Sunday’s Prix Maurice de Gheest with SAMANGAN. The French 2000 Guineas winner wants the good, fast ground he is likely to get. He is a win and place chance.
MORE THUNDER (Tom Marquand) has gone close in two Group 1s this season and was kept fresh for this rather than run in the Sussex Stakes. He is a place chance, along with ZEUS OLYMPIOS, who beat him in the G2 Summer Mile Stakes at Ascot last month. Like BOW ECHO, he is a son of NIGHT OF THUNDER, carrying the Sheikh Mohammed Obaid silks, which would make his a poignant victory.
Source: Hong Kong Jockey Club