Champions Way tries to rebound in Chevalier Cup
Champions Way will try to bounce back from a disappointing season’s debut when he starts Sunday at Sha Tin in the featured Chevalier Cup, a Class 1 handicap over about one mile that drew a field of 14.
Champions Way, a 4-year-old on the Southern Hemisphere breeding calendar, won a remarkable five races in a row last racing season to start his Hong Kong career and wound up a super successful campaign with six wins and a second in seven races, capping his season with a Group 3 victory in the Lion Rock Trophy Stakes.
But, heavily favored Nov. 9 in the Class 1 Panasonic Cup Handicap, his first race in about five months, Champions Way raced from the back of the field and never came close to engaging the leaders, checking in a comprehensively beaten ninth. No strong excuse was proffered for Champions Way, though the front-runners never really came back to the field in the Panasonic Cup.
“He showed last season that he was a rising star,” jockey Regan Bayliss, who takes over the mount Sunday for suspended Joao Moreira, told Hong Kong Jockey Club publicity. “His first-up run maybe looked a bit disappointing but they seemed to roll along at a quick pace and not much made ground . . . I think he’s the real deal.”
Encouraging led and pulled away late to win the Panasonic Cup by 1 ¾ lengths, and off that performance is up seven points in the ratings. That puts him at the top of the weights Sunday in the Chevalier Cup and Encouraging must tote 133 pounds, giving as much as 17 pounds to his opponents.
Just behind Champions Way in the Panasonic Cup was Time to Celebrate, with both trained by John Size. Time to Celebrate also runs in the Chevalier Cup. He also performed well below his best in the Panasonic Cup and has a chance to take a considerable step forward Sunday. Size added blinkers to Time to Celebrate’s race day equipment midway through his 2018-2019 campaign, and Time to Celebrate responded with a series of vastly improved performances.
Size has a third horse who merits a second look in the Chevalier Cup, Nothingilikemore, who mainly had a discouraging 2018-2019 season but dropped from group stakes races to finish better than anyone in the Panasonic Cup, checking in fifth.
Good Standing, a John Moore-trained stablemate of Encouraging, has won at the Class 1 level and over Sunday’s 1,600-meter trip at Sha Tin and probably is sitting on a peak race in his third start this season.
The Chevalier Cup is carded as race 7 of 10, post time 2:20 a.m. Eastern on a card that starts at 11.15 pm. Eastern on Saturday night.