Beauty Generation starts his Hong Kong season with strong win

Nope – Beauty Generation had no rust to shake off.

The 2017-2018 Hong Kong Horse of the Year looked like he might be even better for the 2018-2019 season, winning the Group 3 Celebration Cup on Monday at Sha Tin in a performance visually impressive and fast on the clock.

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Making full use of his positional pace, Beauty Generation got right up to press pace-setting California Whip, whistled past the leader with about two furlongs to run, and had the Celebration Cup put to bed with a furlong and a half left to run. He won by 2 ¼ lengths under Zac Purton, running a very strong 1,400 meters in 1:20.62 while carrying co-top weight of 133 pounds, 10 more than runner-up Ping Hai Star.

“I think he’s probably got better since last season,” Purton told Hong Kong Jockey Club publicity.

Purton and Moore had publicly wondered if Beauty Generation had reached sufficient fitness to hit anything near his best mark in his first start since April 29, but Moore said Beauty Generation had come to hand strongly over the past week, and that in the paddock before Monday’s race he looked like a fit enough horse.

Beauty Generation starts next in the Oriental Watch Sha Tin Trophy late this month and appears to be solidly on course for a repeat bid in the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile on Dec. 9. The 6-year-old New Zealand-bred is a son of Road to Rock and Stylish Bel, by Bel Esprit.

The horse that finished second in the Celebration Cup, Ping Hai Star, looked like a major local player for the 2,000-meter Hong Kong Cup on the Dec. 9 Hong Kong International Races program with an encouraging 5-year-old debut Monday. Ping Hai Star won the Hong Kong Derby last season over 2000 meters and made a long, sustained run to get up for second, three-quarters of a length in front of China Star, before galloping out well in front of the winner.

John Size trains Ping Hai Star and a race earlier sent out the first- and second-place finishers, Hot King Prawn and Ivictory, in the co-featured Group 3 National Day Cup. Hot King Prawn, a rising start last Hong Kong season, was making his stakes debut in the 1000-meter straight course sprint and therefore got 16 pounds from Group 1 winner Ivictory, whom he beat by three-quarters of a length. Ivictory, who prefers 1200 meters and a bend to Monday’s trip, had two lengths on third-place Jumbo Luck in a useful comeback run. Winning time was a quick 56.20 seconds as Hot King Prawn, a 4-year-old Australian-bred son of Denman and the Unbridled’s Song mare De Chorus, won for the seventh time in eight Hong Kong starts. Karis Teetan rode the winner.