Beauty Generation cruises to Champions Mile repeat

What looked like an exhibition on paper played out like one on the Sha Tin Racecourse turf Sunday when Beauty Generation won the Group 1, $2.3 million Champions Mile for the second year in a row.

The form said Beauty Generation, an overwhelming favorite, could make an easy lead against six overmatched rivals, and Beauty Generation said, ‘Sure – don’t mind if I do.’ Breaking sharply under Zac Purton, Beauty Generation hit the front two strides into the Champions Mile, strolled through an opening 400 meters in 25.33 seconds, and never – not for one hoof-beat – looked like anything but a winner.

Beauty Generation zipped his second 400 meters in 22.96, went his third such interval in 22.98, and with Purton seeing nothing remotely resembling a threat when he looked back after turning for home, got his final 400 in 22.36 despite his jockey never even cocking his stick while taking his foot off the pedal the final half-furlong. Winning time for the 1600 meters (about one mile) on a quick-playing course rated good was 1:33.63.

Singapore Sling, who tracked the leader from third around the Champions Mile’s one bend, finished second, 1 1/2 lengths behind the winner and two in front of Simply Brilliant. The race was run at level weights, all horses carrying 126 pounds.

“It's what we expected him to do today,” said Purton, who rides Beauty Generation for trainer John Moore and the Kwok family that owns the gelding. “When he's out in front like that mid-race and there's nothing around pushing him, he just floats a little bit so my job was to try to keep him rolling a little bit and let him do the rest.”

Beauty Generation, a 6-year-old New Zealand-bred by Road to Rock out of Stylish Bel, by Bel Esprit, now has won nine races in a row and is 8 for 8 this Hong Kong season. He became the first horse to twice win the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile and the Champions Mile in the same racing season, and with Winx retired the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings has Beauty Generation the highest-rated active horse anywhere in the world.

But while Moore has been keen to widen Beauty Generation’s horizons, and advocated a trip to Dubai last month, the gelding’s owners have been more focused on basking in the glory of Beauty Generation’s home-court dominance. Moore after Sunday’s race once again expressed a desire to travel, in this case to Japan for a tilt with Almond Eye in the Yasuda Kinen, while publicly acknowledging the owners could remain more focused on maintaining Beauty Generation’s winning streak with an eye toward Silent Witness’s Hong Kong-record 17.

If races keep coming up for Beauty Generation like the Champions Mile did, he just might.