Beauty Generation tries to restore shine

When Beauty Generation won the Group 1 Stewards’ Cup at a mile on turf at Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong in January 2019, the victory was his sixth success of a 10-race winning streak.

Beauty Generation was honored as Hong Kong’s Horse of the Year for the 2018-19 season, his second consecutive title.

When Beauty Generation starts in Sunday’s $1.28 million Stewards’ Cup, the race will provide a chance for the brilliant 7-year-old gelding to restore his reputation. Beauty Generation has been third in his last three races, the latest of which was the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile against an international field at Sha Tin in December.

Trainer John Moore has mentioned the Group 1 Dubai Turf, a $6 million race at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates on March 28, as a goal for Beauty Generation provided the Australian-bred runs well on Sunday.

“I think it all depends on this Stewards’ Cup run,” Moore told Hong Kong publicity earlier this week. “If he runs a big one, first or second in a fighting finish, Dubai is definitely on the cards.

“He’s not the top horse he was and we put that down to the age factor. It’s nothing to do with soundness. He’s fine. He’s just getting older.”

The Stewards’ Cup field includes Waikuku, who beat Beauty Generation in the Group 2 Jockey Club Mile at Sha Tin in November, a prep for the Hong Kong Mile. Waikuku later finished second in the Hong Kong Mile.

“He’s the younger horse coming through the grades that looks like he might be special,” Moore said of Waikuku.

Waikuku, trained by John Size, won his first group stakes in the Jockey Club Mile. Last March, Waikuku was second in the Hong Kong Derby at 1 1/4 miles on turf behind Furore, who is part of the Stewards’ Cup field.

Furore, trained by Frankie Lor, is winless in five starts in group stakes since the Hong Kong Mile, including a troubled fourth in the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup at 1 1/4 miles at Sha Tin last month.

Later on Sunday’s Sha Tin program, Beat the Clock and Hot King Prawn, the first two finishers of the Group 1 Hong Kong Sprint against an international field last month, meet for the third time this season in the Group 1 Centenary Sprint Cup at six furlongs.

Hot King Prawn and Beat the Clock were second and third behind Aethero in the Group 2 Jockey Club Sprint at Sha Tin in November. Beat the Clock, who won the 2019 Centenary Sprint Cup, had his first start in more than six months in the Jockey Club Sprint.

Aethero will miss Sunday’s$1.28 million Centenary Sprint Cup because of a fever, according to the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s website.