For Beauty Generation, Hong Kong Mile will tell the tale

HONG KONG – For the entire 2018-19 Hong Kong racing season, Beauty Generation was literally unbeatable. Eight starts, eight wins, four Group 1’s, a second straight Hong Kong Mile, and an international rating that put him near the top of the world.

The 7-year-old Hong Kong-based star began this season looking like the same animal, launching his campaign Oct. 1 in the Group 3 Celebration Cup with a 1 1/4-length win in a 1,400-meter Sha Tin course-record 1:20.05. That was Beauty Generation’s 10th win a row, but now, barely more than two months later, he comes into the Hong Kong Mile on Sunday on a two-race losing streak.

On Oct. 20, Beauty Generation sent shock waves through Hong Kong racing circles when he finished third in the Group 2 Oriental Watch Sha Tin Trophy Handicap. In the aftermath, though, plausible reasons for defeat surfaced. Beauty Generation carried 133 pounds in the race, 14 more than victorious Landfall, 19 more than second-place Waikuku. He was running back less than two weeks after a powerhouse performance in his first race after a five-month layoff, a recipe for regression. The widespread assumption held that Beauty Generation would bounce back Nov. 17 in the Jockey Club Mile, his prep for a run at a third Hong Kong Mile here in the Dec. 8 Hong Kong International Races program.

That didn’t happen. Beauty Generation led to the homestretch in the Jockey Club Mile but, giving just five pounds to the horses that beat him this time, gave way without much resistance as Waikuku defeated Ka Ying Star by three-quarters of a length. It was nearly two lengths back to third-place Beauty Generation.

“I thought I had more there,” said Zac Purton, who has ridden Beauty Generation in his last dozen starts. “He travelled really well through the middle of the race, and I was really comfortable with how things had gone, but when I asked him, he didn’t lengthen, didn’t accelerate. He wasn’t the same horse. It’s a bit of a mystery.”

Purton, trainer John Moore, and Beauty Generation’s local owners, the Kwok family, haven’t abandoned hope. Purton said the belief remains that Beauty Generation hasn’t lost his spark.

“Normally, they give you a sign they’re starting to tail off and he gave us no inclination at all. He’d been working great,” Purton said. “The only thing we can put it down to is that he went into the race first up this season well over his normal racing weight. He was carrying a lot of condition, and then carried 133 pounds and ran a track record. We think maybe he exhausted himself and he’s just been a little bit flat since. He’s getting older, of course, and maybe it just took the wind out of him.”

Beauty Generation weighed 1,130 pounds when he began his 2018-19 season and weighed 1,141 when he won the 2018 HK Mile. He weighed in at 1,161 in his first start this year and still was at 1,151 in the Jockey Club Mile. Only now has Beauty Generation gotten back to his more standard racing weight.

“Hopefully, that means he’s going to switch himself back on and give us what we need,” Purton said. “He’s not getting beat that much, not running last.”

But he’s not his previous, unbeatable self, either. Whether Beauty Generation still has that sort of performance in him, we’ll see Sunday.