On one of those rare Sunday race meetings at Happy Valley – and why there wasn’t some Happy Sunday events in the Beer Garden beats us – the first race got punters of to a winning start when the favourite, Lucky Record ridden by Brett Prebble won.
It was a very average race and with none of the horses except for the winner going to amount to anything much.
After over 40 starts, Classa ridden by Alex H W Lai won its first race and this horse truly deserved to win.
As for the race favourite, Ray’s Favourite – geddit?
Race Favourite? Ray’s Favourite? – there are those days when we really have no idea how jockey Howard Y T Cheng rides winners.
We swear he looked like the Cisco Kid in search of his amigo Pancho.
It was truly awful to watch and Ray’s Favourite was the first horse beaten.
Even though they didn’t win on their mounts, Howard The Quack Quack should really watch the rides of Tim Clark and Tye Angland – good stuff to come second and fourth, respectively.
We were just glad that race was over.
It was a shocker and which nearly made it a Sombrero Sunday, thanks to that ride.
Dale Evans would have given Ray’s Favourite a manlier ride.
Then again, what the hell were the Cisco Kid and Pancho doing riding through the Wild West all alone?
Probably trying to hook up with that masked man – Lone Ranger and one of the great great grandfather’s of one of the Village People in Tonto.
While the race favourite in the next – Rumba King – decided to live up to its name and started to do some gawky footwork all over the place like some drunken sailor down in Wanchai, Vincent C Y Ho brought Prosperous towards the middle of the track and won the race.
Though a huge plunge on the Tony Cruz-trained Real Dragon in Race 4 and Matthew Chadwick taking it to the front, the horse capitulated as it came around the corner.
It was fucked and kept bouncing in the one spot like a Jack-In-The-Box.
Meanwhile, Alex H W Lai on Panther Run came storming down the middle of the track – which was where to be today – to rack up a double and run down the unlucky Lucky Chevalier with Iron Hawk making a belated effort to make it into third place.
There was another big plunge in the next race and which also went astray – the money on Happy Cha Cha.
In a strangely run race with usual back-marker Vanquish Delight in the unusual role of leader, the race was setup for horses coming off the pace.
And which is exactly what happened with the Danny C S Shum-Darren Beadman combination on Healthy Manner winning again and with Zac Purton on the heavily-tipped Young Hero just failing to grab the winner.
A side note: Could someone persuade the owners to change the name of Mr. Marfach?
Every time it runs, it proves to be quite a mouthful for Paddock Parade expert Jenny Chapman.
As if to prove to us that the Cisco Kid can ride winners, Howard The Quack Quack won the next- the Po Leung Kuk Centenary Cup – on Smart Kids at 20 to 1 and with the flop of the race being the 1.8 favourite Happy Yeah Yeah, which only managed to plod home fourth and blew out many hoping to strike the Triple Trio.
The Yeahs Yeahs became Nay Nays.
Mosse was at his most forceful in the next race on Space Race but it was still not good enough to ward off the huge run on the outside from the very well-handicapped Double Luck with Keith M L Yeung aboard and which was crashed in the betting.
It was a good win and a very good ride.
Space Race? A very average horse.
Not average was the ride of Alex H W Lai on Lunar Reflections in Race 8.
We watched his ride all the way and it really was all class.
He had his horse third and as they turned for home, he took his horse wide and with blinkers on for the first time, it absolutely pissed in.
Alex H W Lai had figured out how to ride this particular Happy Valley track better than any other jockey on the day, and rode off with a treble in the bag.
After a series of frustrated placings on the day, David Ferraris got one home when Brett Prebble won on Chater Mikado in Race 9, with the very confidently bet Kyara running second.
This must have been sweet revenge for Ferraris.
Ferraris lost Kyara to Moore last season and when much was expected of the galloper.
However, the move has yielded no successes – and to be beaten by the injury -plagued and pretty average Chater Mikado – AND surviving an objection fired in by Beadman on the second placed horse and which took ages to come to a conclusion we all knew what the result would be, well, what can we say?
The objection was finally dismissed. Yawn.
The big disappointments in the race were King Mossman – another flop for the galloper at Happy Valley – and Windicator Power.
As for the last race, this went to Outdoor Pegasus which gained a start when Cheer was withdrawn.
Brett Prebble won the Jockeys Challenge, Alex H W Lai rode a treble and David Ferraris will sleep tonight with a smile on his face.
All in all, an Okay day of racing and which probably would made for a great evening Happy Wednesday meetings.
For some reason, horse racing on Sunday afternoons and Shatin go hand-in-hand far better.
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