Golden Sixty likely to extend dominance in Hong Kong Mile

The great Golden Sixty goes for his third straight Group 1 Hong Kong Mile on Sunday at Sha Tin.

Who can stop him from getting it?

Probably not the 4-year-old California Spangle – not yet, at least. On Nov. 20 in the Jockey Club Mile, California Spangle had two races on the season, got five pounds from 7-year-old Golden Sixty, who was making his first start in seven months, and took the easiest of leads. Still, Golden Sixty ran him down to win by a neck.

Probably not the three Japan-based horses in the race. Golden Sixty, in his 2021 Mile win, beat Salios by three lengths, and Salios comes into the Hong Kong Mile after a flat 14th-place finish Nov. 20 in the Group 1 Mile Championship at Hanshin Racecourse. Schnell Meister had moderate traffic trouble at the head of the stretch in the same race, but once clear kicked only moderately to finish fifth. Danon Scorpion pulled a wide trip in the Mile Championship, but that alone doesn’t account for his 11th-place finish.

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And certainly not Australia-based Laws of Indices nor any of the other four Hong Kong runners, whom Golden Sixty towers over.

Golden Sixty is well drawn in post 4, stands to come forward in his second start of the year, and even as a heavy favorite would be a satisfying HK Mile hero should he win for the 23rd time in 26 starts.

Golden Sixty takes the spotlight Sunday at Sha Tin, but the $3.85 million Mile isn’t the feature on the Hong Kong International Races program. Immediately following the Mile, race 7 of 10, is the $4.37 Hong Kong Cup, the 2,000-meter feature headed by rising Hong Kong star Romantic Warrior. The group action begins with the $2.83 million Hong Kong Vase over 2,400 meters and continues with the $3.08 million Hong Kong Sprint before the Mile and the Cup.

First post for the card is 11:25 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Watch and wager at DRFBets.com.

A wager on Golden Sixty won’t return much – but it should come back a winner. Trained by Francis Lui for owner Stanley Chan Ka Leung, Golden Sixty already ranks as one of Hong Kong’s best horses ever, and with another Mile victory Sunday, he’d join Good Ba Ba (2007-09) as a three-time HK Mile winner. Bred in Australia, Golden Sixty has an American-style pedigree – by Medaglia d’Oro out of Gaudeamus, by Distorted Humor. He has run one poor race in his life, a fading 10th in the July 2017, and his two losses last season are entirely excusable. One came over soft ground at 2,000 meters, far from ideal circumstances for Golden Sixty, the other this past spring over 1,600 meters in the Stewards Cup, where regular rider Vincent Ho simply left Golden Sixty with too much ground to close through the homestretch. Golden Sixty was beaten by HK Mile rival Waikuku despite sizzling his final 400 meters in 21.95 seconds.

Ho had gotten into the habit of holding Golden Sixty far off the early leaders, a tactic that made things more challenging for Golden Sixty and ultimately proved entirely unnecessary. Allowed to settle closer to the speed in the last two starts of his 2021-22 campaign, Golden Sixty still unleashed his typically brilliant late burst and won easily. In his first start this season, racing at less than 100 percent, Golden Sixty covered his final 400 meters in a breathtaking 21.32.

Sunday’s race is run at level weights, 126 pounds. With Golden Sixty training like a horse set to improve second time out, the Hong Kong Mile does not look like a level playing field.

Hong Kong Cup

With better luck, Romantic Warrior could be unbeaten in nine starts. The 4-year-old Irish-bred gelding looks like Hong Kong’s newest star – he and California Spangle appear to be successors to Golden Sixty – but Romantic Warrior will require the race of his life to win a terrific renewal of the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup.

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Among his 11 rivals are five horses from Japan, a powerhouse contingent top to bottom.

Panthalassa, with an international rating of 121, is the highest-rated horse in the Cup. He is the dead-heat winner of the Group 1 Dubai Turf this past March and most recently second of 15 in the Group 1 Autumn Tenno Sho. The 5-year-old horse, by Lord Kanaloa, also is an easy read tactically – he goes to the lead and tries to dominate with a combination of speed and stamina. His regular rider, Yutaka Yoshida, took the running style to an extreme in the Autumn Tenno Sho, where he let Panthalassa open a 15-length lead, an attempted theft of the 2,000-meter contest that was thwarted when they were nailed on the wire.

A closing fourth in the same race was Jack d’Or, an improving 4-year-old who has yet to win at the Group 1 level. Danon the Kid was second last out in the Mile Championship, but hasn’t won in two years and is more proven as a miler, while Lei Papale could only finish sixth in the 2021 HK Cup.

The fifth Japanese runner is 3-year-old colt Geoglyph, who will be ridden for the first time by William Buick. Geoglyph gets three pounds from the older males, and might prove Romantic Warrior’s leading rival. In the Group 1 Satsuki Sho this past April, he beat Autumn Tenno Sho winner Equinox, though Equinox had a poor post and a wide trip. Geoglyph was ninth in the Autumn Tenno Sho while making his first start in five months and should be set to come forward.

Home-field advantage, however, goes a long way at Sha Tin, where Romantic Warrior won the Hong Kong Derby and the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup, both over 2,000 meters, in the last two starts of his 2021-22 campaign. His lone loss, in the Classic Cup, can be put down to a bad trip from a terrible post. Romantic Warrior, racing well below his peak, smartly won the Nov. 20 Jockey Club Cup in his first race since April.

Hong Kong Vase

Hong Kong’s top horses are sprinters and milers, which is apparent in the 1 1/2-mile Hong Kong Vase, a race where Europe- and Japan-based runners should rule.

Glory Vase, one of two Japanese shippers along with Win Marilyn, won the Vase in 2019 and again in 2021, but he was eighth in the Sheema Classic last March and sixth in his only start since, the Sapporo Kinen in August.

Three-year-old Stone Age will win if he can reproduce his fine second-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. Turning in the best race of his life, Stone Age was beaten only by Rebel’s Romance, with jockey Ryan Moore saying afterward that the colt finally had begun to find himself and figured to improve going forward.

Mendocino, a German horse, finished 12th in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, while France-based Bubble Gift was 17th in the same race.

◗ The Hong Kong Sprint is the toughest race on the card, a 1,200-meter dash with 14 entrants and nothing close to a standout. The 3-year-old Lucky Sweynesse won the local prep for the Sprint while getting five pounds from older rivals. Second in the 2021 Hong Kong Sprint was the Japan-based mare Resistencia, who cuts back from longer trips as a win threat.

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