On a glorious day at Shatin and with a very strong eleven race card ahead, the first race saw Douglas Whyte taking off where he left off on the weekend by winning on the John Size-trained Glory Horsie.
The disappointment was the flop of raging favourite Five Star Hotel, trained by David Hall and ridden by Brett Prebble.
As for Whyte, he was the hot favourite to win the Jockeys Challenge, and this first win saw his odds come crashing down $1.25.
As for Glory Horsie, it just sounds weird when mentioned by mature race callers.
One almost expects some child to be talking about this “Horsie” and which we also think is spelt incorrectly.
This “horsey” won only by a neck and Whyte’s power beat Dennis C H Yip’s newcomer Regal Army ridden by Alvin K C Ng.
We’re getting as tired of you writing about how we are really starting to doubt all the hype placed on Ng and him being the most experienced apprentice to ride in Hong Kong and who came back here having ridden the most number of winners in New Zealand and Oz.
As far as we’re concerned, Apprentices Vincent C Y Ho and Keith M L Yeung are riding the pants off him and Alvin K C Ng might just need a “relief” in the hype department.
Speaking of Yeung, he won the next race – a Class 5 race which turned out to be a messy affair.
Whyte got left at the start on the Derek Cruz-trained Duke’s Victory and kept running into one roadblock after another.
Forget this run and follow it the next time if you must have a bet on a Class 5 event where picking anything is as rare as picking gold nuggets from your nose.
Even with a few stops and starts, Keith M L Yeung got Ricky P F Yiu’s Super Pepper home with Darren Beadman combining once again with trainer Danny C S Shum to just be knocked out of winning the race on Sugar On Top.
He also had his whip knocked off his hand or else dropped it in a moment of excitement.
We know a certain lady who goes with names of horse when she works out her bets put Sugar together with Pepper and grabbed the quinella for $500.
Women!
Coming in a close third was Newswire Too.
Frankly, we’d follow none from this race and just pretend it never happened.
The two Frenchmen – Gerard Mosse and Olivier Delouze – ran the quinella in Race 3 with the former given an armchair ride on what looks like being a very promising horse in the Tony Cruz-trained Best Eleven.
When good horses combine with Mosse, it’s truly beautiful to watch.
The Maestro has such great hands and makes it all look so easy.
He might never win a Jockeys Championship, but he really is the only world class jockey riding in Hong Kong winning Group races all over the place and doing so with what looks on the surface as being such little effort.
Mosse is ageless and peerless and a Class – make that Group – act.
The Pins 4-year-old and hot pot Smart Giant took out the fourth in a canter for the Moore-Beadman combination and suddenly the Jockeys Challenge started to look very different.
Beadman came crashing down in the odds to take it out as the odds for Whyte drifted out.
Tye Angland proved why he is one of our favourite jockeys by teaming up with Dennis Yip for the first time to take out the next race on City King – taking a class drop and sporting blinkers for the first time.
But it was Angland’s ride which impressed us – patient, stalking, waiting for a small door to open- and when it did, he said, Thank you very much, and off he went to notch up winner number seven for the season and win the Silver Lining Cup.
This jockey is going to go far.
Horses to follow from this race? Definitely the second place-getter Lucky Warrior which might have done with a slightly more patient ride by Howard “Quack Quack” Cheng.
Patience and “Quack Quack” is an oxymoron.
Also, Super Genki when stepped up over a mile.
The Hall-Prebble combination had their second flop for the day when another of their raging hot favourites could only manage third place in this race.
Douglas Whyte bounced back and took out Race 6 pretty easily on the Peter B K Ng-trained 2 to 1 favourite Flying Chaparral.
It was never even going to lose.
The same can be said of the Caspar Fownes’ charge Best City.
This is a VERY good horse and, ridden very confidently by Vincent C Y Ho, it won like one.
Just keep following this galloper.
It can go much higher than this grade.
Alvin K C Ng broke his duck and rode the winner in the next – Guru’s Dream – while Beadman on the hot pot – Time After Time – gave his ride a nice, “gentle” ride after a nice “gentle” start to the race.
It has no chance from the time the barriers open and was “well ridden” to come in third.
We seriously expect better and stronger rides from a jockey of Beadman’s caliber.
Sorry, but it was a horrible bloody ride.
It was, as we say in France, merde and we tore our tickets way and moaned and whinged through our pockets.
Perhaps Beadman saving his whim and vigour for the next race? Fucked if we know, but we had no fucking idea what the hell he was doing ducking and weaving in that race when there was no reason to do any of those theatrics.
Next was the race, we all came to see and find out if whether all the traps laid to stop John Size’s Entrapment winning nine consecutive wins would come to an end.
But, you know what they say about the best laid plans.
Though there was a neck between the first three horses and Entrapment had to fight its way out of various traps, Size’s other runner – Rich Unicorn at 65 to 1- and ridden by Mark Du Plessis came from last and from the clouds to over-power a very brave Little Bridge – second – and with Entrapment third.
It was a very anti-climactic result and with the red hot favourite, despite running into a few traffic blocks, never looking like winning.
After the blow-outs in the last two races, we had to take a breather and were pleased to see the Matthew Chadwick and Tony Cruz-trained California Memory winning the Sha Tin Trophy from Thumbs Up and Xtension.
Again, despite drawing barrier two, Douglas Whyte was competitively hemmed in my Darren Beadman and was unlucky to be held up this way.
But, that’s competitive racing.
It was an excellent and patient ride by Chadwick who, like Mark Du Plessis on Rich Unicorn the race before came from last.
Watching how pumped up he was after the horse crossed the winning line showed how important this victory meant for the young jockey.
He was vindicated for his shocking ride on the horse in Singapore and when he tried to lead on it all the way.
Douglas Whyte won the last easily on Paul O’Sullivan’s New Vision and waltzed away with the Jockeys Challenge.
But it must have been a hollow “win” for the jock following the defeat of Entrapment – and then, in the next race – Sichuan Success.
Well, you can’t win them all, mate.
As for us, we’ll be back to fight again next Saturday at Shatin and, before that, we’ll be at Flemington cheering on “Americain” in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday.
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