Hong Kong: Golden Sixty takes second-straight HK Mile as tragedy mars card

Golden Sixty grew his legend, becoming Hong Kong’s winning-most horse while landing his second straight Hong Kong Mile. Star Japanese mare Loves Only You showed she’s among the great world travelers of recent vintage, going from success in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf to victory in the Hong Kong Cup. Glory Vase repeated his 2019 triumph in the Hong Kong Vase, storming home to beat in-form English shipper Pyledriver.

This all could have produced a deeply satisfying renewal of the Hong Kong International Races, the four Group 1s run annually in December, a high point of the Hong Kong racing season, but a gruesome accident in the Hong Kong Sprint cast a shadow over Sunday’s races at Sha Tin Racecourse.

Amazing Star, pressing the pace while racing three paths wide approaching the homestretch, broke down suddenly and catastrophically, creating a cataclysmic chain reaction. Lucky Patch, directly trailing Amazing Star, crashed instantly into his stricken rival. Another trailing horse, the massive Naboo Attack, ran headlong into those two, and the Japanese shipper Pixie Knight, racing near the rear, also hurtled into the mass. Another Japanese horse, Danon Smash, raced one path outside Amazing Star and managed to jump clear of serious trouble, jogging across the finish with jockey Yuga Kawada still in the irons.

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Lyle Hewitson, riding Amazing Star, was reported to have sustained a fractured hip but was fortunate nothing worse befell him. Zac Purton, leading jockey in Hong Kong, suffered a broken nose and at least one broken rib after being dislodged from Lucky Patch. Yuichi Fukunaga, Pixie Knight’s rider, fractured his clavicle, while Karis Teetan, aboard Naboo Attack, walked away from the accident uninjured.

Amazing Star quickly was euthanized and, after being transported back to the stables for evaluation, Naboo Attack also had to be put down. Pixie Dust, initially thought to be unharmed, later was found to have fractured a knee. There were no specific reports on Lucky Patch, who somehow managed to avoid completely falling and jogged away, riderless, after the incident.

Seven horses were left to finish, with Courier Wonder giving up the lead in the final furlong as Sky Field rallied to post a three-quarters-length win, Blake Shinn riding for trainer Caspar Fownes. “We’ve got mixed emotions there,” Fownes said. Five-year-old Sky Field, an Australian-bred son of Deep Field and Laravissante, by O’Reilly, won his first Group 1.

The $3.08 million Sprint was the second of the Group 1s, immediately following the $2.87 Vase, the longest of the four races at 2,400 meters, about 1 1/2 miles. Six-year-old Glory Vase, who at times has raced as far as two miles, sees out that trip easily, and he ran down a very good 4-year-old in Pyledriver to win the Vase by one length under Joao Moreira.

Glory Vase won the 2019 Vase by three lengths and this past April shipped from Japan to finish second behind Loves Only You in the Group 1 QE II Cup over 2,000 meters. Moreira held him near the back of an eight-horse field Sunday despite the Vase unfolding at a slow tempo, and while Pyledriver got first run and went clear, Glory Vase, the odds-on favorite, always had him measured, hitting the front in plenty of time. Ebaiyra, who may have been the great French trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre’s final runner before retirement, ran well to finish third.

Six-year-old Glory Vase’s pedigree has strong trans-Pacific ties to America. He’s by Deep Impact, a son of Kentucky Derby winner Sunday Silence, and out of Mejiro Tsubone, a mare by Swept Overboard, winner of the 2002 Met Mile.

There was an everyday handicap race between the Sprint and the $3.34 million Mile, but Golden Sixty, the star of this whole show, still came onto the racecourse with a cloud hanging over Sha Tin. It was unfortunate that his performance Sunday followed tragedy, because Golden Sixty continued to make his case as a thoroughly great horse rather than merely a local legend.

Golden Sixty won his first three starts, back in 2019, before fading to finish 10th in his final race that season. Since then, he’s won sixteen in a row and Sunday’s score, his second straight Hong Kong Mile, marked his 19th win, the highest victory total ever posted by a Hong Kong horse. And though Golden Sixty is a 6-year-old now, he seems to have hit the peak of his powers.

His last three wins of the 2020-21 season came by desperately narrow margins, but Golden Sixty finished like a train behind a walking pace to win the Jockey Club Mile by one length in his first race this season, and he dominated this HK Mile. Racing along the rail and, for a horse who often has been headstrong, settling well under regular rider Vincent Ho, Golden Sixty was eighth after a quarter-mile, creeping up to seventh, then sixth around the turn before Ho left the fence at the 500-meter mark to explore his options. With no room to swing wide and into the clear, Ho steered back to his right, found a seam at the 300-meter mark, and Golden Sixty took care of the rest, no frantic, last-second rallies required this time. Golden Sixty collared the leader, Salios, with a furlong to run, opened a lead of several lengths, and would have won by a wider margin had he not eased up the final 50 yards.

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“It was much better today because the pace was on. He actually relaxed very well and as a 6-year-old he’s more mature, so it’s even better,” Ho told Hong Kong Jockey Club publicity.

Golden Sixty, who paid $2.60 to win, clocked 1:33.86 for the 1,600 meters over a “good” course. Bred in Australia, he’s a son of Medaglia d’Oro out of Gaudeamus, by Distorted Humor. Another Hong Kong horse, More Than This, closed strongly to finish second, Salios holding third.

This looked like the strongest field Golden Sixty has faced, and no Hong Kong horse can beat him unless trainer Francis Lui starts his star in a handicap race where Golden Sixty would be burdened with the equivalent of a grand piano. Further enhancement of his international reputation would require travel, and while connections seem to have little interest in a trip to Dubai this spring and are aiming for the Stewards Cup in January at Sha Tin, a 2022 race in Japan has come under consideration.

There will be no more racing for Loves Only You, who put an exclamation mark on the Group 1 contests Sunday by beating Hishi Iguazu by a nose in the $3.85 million Cup. Making her final start before becoming a broodmare and racing just five weeks after a demanding win in the Breeder’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar, Loves Only You bravely squeezed between horses in deep stretch to get her nose down over Hishi Iguazu, another Japanese horse who was finishing powerfully on the outside with Moreira.

Yuga Kawada, who narrowly avoided the Sprint disaster on Danon Smash, went for an inside run with Loves Only You, who lacked room for much of the homestretch before splitting rivals and diving for the wire. Russian Emperor, who loomed boldly in midstretch, finished third, English shipper Dubai Honour fourth.

Loves Only You, trained by Yoshohito Yahagi, ran 2,000 meters in 2:00.66 and paid $5.20 to win, and like Glory Vase and Golden Sixty, her pedigree leans American. She’s also by Deep Impact and is out of the mare Loves Only Me, a daughter of one-time leading U.S. stallion Storm Cat. Loves Only You won the Yushun Himba, the Japanese Oaks, as a 3-year-old of 2019 but went winless during a five-start 2020 campaign. This season, she was third behind two top-class horses, Mishriff and Chrono Genesis, in the Sheema Classic on March 27 in Dubai, and just a month later won the QE II Cup at Sha Tin. She used an August race as a steppingstone to the Breeders’ Cup and completed her remarkable season with a two-continent, Group 1 double.

Golden Sixty, Loves Only You, and total handle approaching $222 million on a 10-race card pulled off during a global pandemic. Still, the Hong Kong International Races of 2021 will linger with a bittersweet taste.

“It’s hard to enjoy it completely,” said Ho, Golden Sixty’s jockey, speaking for just about everyone.