HOW SWEET IT WAS AT SHATIN!

One of the more bizarre highlights of the Panasonic Cup Day at Shatin today was when we swear trainer Tony Millard was going to jump on one of the sponsor’s toy horses and whip it. Sadly, it never happened. Before this, Apprentice Ben So who won the Jockeys Challenge on Wednesday took off from where he left off and won the first race on Excellent Win which also kept trainer Peter Ng’s incredible strike rate at this early stage in the season ticking away very nicely.

As for Ben So, who was only so-so a few seasons ago, well, this kid has really improved- stronger, far better at placing his horses in a race whereas not that long ago his riding “style” resembled that of a crab and looked all at sea. The flop of the race was the favourite in the Gary Ng-trained and Douglas Whyte ridden Astrokid. Yes, he got off to a poor start, but Astrokid seems like a real space cadet and we’ll bung him into the lap sap bin or shoot him off to the moon.

The next race saw the childishly-named Glory Horsie -spelt incorrectly, too, step out. Couldn’t trainer John Size let the owner known that it’s spelt “Horsey” and not Horsie? Then again, Size matters and he probably has other things on his mind. Like how to make Glory Horsie win a race. It came second to the very smart newcomer Fionn’s Treasure ridden by Zac Purton. This horse is going to go far. Two races down and we had seen horses at odds of over 12 to 1 win and the favourites flopped. Things were not looking good for backers of the favourites.

The Zac Attack continued by also winning the next on Gary Ng’s King Spartacus despite a very daring ride by Brett Doyle on Good Thinker. Again, the hot favourite- Delish- flopped and we sacked this horse some time ago.

Our two resident Frenchman- Gerard Mosse and Olivier Delouze- fought out race 4 and with the latter winning and also winning race 6 for new trainer in town, Richard Gibson while Mosse- the huge Swordsman- came roaring back to win the 7th on Lucky Follow Me for trainer Danny Shum.

The “grudge race” between trainers John Moore and David Ferraris ended with the Moore horse, the very genuine Captain Sweet with Darren Beadman at his best, taking out the Panasonic Cup. Given a perfect and strong ride by Tye Angland, Ferraris’ Sweet Orange could only manage third and which would not make it a happy day in the Ferraris household tonight. The “hoarse whisperer” would be spitting bullets. The flop of the race is one our Guru predicted- New Vision- which, despite being favourite, was never in the race. We have to agree with the Guru: There is just something about this horse which has never ever made it a favourite of ours. We have to say that the once-Ferraris trained Kyara and now with Moore was the unlucky runner of the race. Its run had BACK ME THE NEXT TIME written all over it.

Zac Purton racked up a treble with his win on Scarlette Camellia- and another win for Danny Shum which brought the trainer’s tally to five runners for three winners and two placings.

With Olivier Delouze coming oh-so-close to beating Purton and taking the lead in the Jockeys Challenge, all eyes were on the last race and which many thought was a forgone conclusion and the flamboyant Frenchman winning on red hot favourite Longwah Supreme. It was not to be.

It was a very strange stop-start ride by Delouze and with that other Frenchman- the great Gerard Mosse- leading all the way on the Tony Cruz-trained Bullish Champion- and which was backed for a stack along with Chater Mikado.

Longwah Supreme, labored under its weight, wobbled around the corner and ended up fourth and never ever looked like it wanted to win.

Meanwhile, Mosse made it look all so easy.

Chater Mikado?

As The Guru said, it’s an ordinary horse and gave an ordinary display.

One thing we will keep saying is that Hong Kong truly has the only truly international racing in the world.