Hong Kong: Lucky Sweynesse cuts back in search of fifth win of season

Lucky Sweynesse will try for his fifth win on the 2021-22 Hong Kong racing season in the featured ninth race Wednesday at Happy Valley Racecourse.

Just a 3-year-old, Lucky Sweynesse only made his career debut Feb. 9, winning a Class 4 handicap by two lengths in his first start. Now, the gelding, rated 52 for his unveiling, has risen to a rating of 87 and is one of a dozen horses in the last of nine races Wednesday, a Class 2 handicap over 1,200 meters for horses rated 100-80.

Trained by Manfred K.L. Man, Lucky Sweynesse has lost only once in five starts, the defeat coming two races ago when he lugged 133 pounds over a yielding Happy Valley course in a Class 3 handicap. Lucky Sweynesse finished a solid third, beaten by two horses who surged up the rail while he rallied wide; one of the two that beat him carried only 114 pounds, but the other was co-high-weighted with Lucky Sweynesse, also carrying 133.

As much as the weight, Lucky Sweynesse’s inability to relax during the early and middle stages of that race proved his undoing, and it is a habit the gelding will need to unlearn at some point if he is to continue rising up the class ladder. He raced rank again June 5 while starting for the first time at Sha Tin Racecourse, still finishing just well enough to hang on by a nose over a fast-closing foe and post his fourth victory.

That Class 2 came over 1,400 meters, and 1,200 Wednesday with Happy Valley’s shorter homestretch should better suit Lucky Sweynesse. Matthew Poon rode the gelding last out at Sha Tin and has a return call Wednesday. Poon is a two-pound apprentice and so Lucky Sweynesse carries a manageable 120 pounds. He breaks from post 2, likely lacks the speed to make the lead, and therefore might have to settle behind rivals.

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Zac Purton rode Lucky Sweynesse to his first three wins but Wednesday winds up on top-rated Keep You Warm. Keep You Warm carries 133 pounds, up from the 124 under which he won at this class level and distance in his most recent race, May 18. That two-length score was a career peak for Keep You Warm, though the 5-year-old No Nay Never gelding has been improving all season.

Leading Hong Kong jockey Joao Moreira is back aboard Eason, who was soundly defeated last out under a different rider but previously had won two straight Class 3s by open lengths with Moreira in the irons. Eason wants to show speed and will have to come out running from post 1 to out-foot Voyage Warrior for the lead.

Post time for the feature is 10:50 a.m. Eastern with first post set for 6:45 a.m. Catch all the action at DRFBets.com.

Beauty Joy storms home in Premier Cup Handicap

Beauty Joy notched an improbable win Sunday in the Group 3 Premier Cup Handicap. Slow into stride in this 1,400-meter dash, Beauty Joy quickly lost contact with the main body of the field and was traveling so poorly that jockey Zac Purton said he considered pulling his mount up.

Beauty Joy picked up a little momentum around the turn but still was last of nine by a considerable margin with 500 meters to run. Purton steered to the far outside for the stretch run, and Beauty Joy lit up, getting his final 400 meters in a blazing 21.83 seconds to win by one length, going away. Beauty Joy clocked 1:21.55 and was followed across the wire by Lucky Express and Healthy Happy. The Tony Cruz-trained, Australian-bred 5-year-old son of Sebring sports a 7-5-1-1 record this year.

In Sunday’s co-featured Group 3 Premier Plate over 1,800 meters, Toubillon Diamond won by a nose thanks in no small part to what happened behind him in the homestretch.

Carrying top weight of 132 pounds, including jockey Alexis Badel, Tourbillon Diamond swept wide from third-last at the head of the race’s one turn to reach contention at the head of the stretch. Behind him, Turin Redsun, favored in great part because he carried just 113 pounds, was locked in behind Tourbillon Diamond as Zac Purton on eventual third-place finisher Butterfield kept Turin Redsun from finding any place to finish. Turin Redsun finally came into the clear inside the final half-furlong, but his late surge fell a nose short of Tourbillon Diamond.

Clifford Shum trains Tourbillon Diamond, a 5-year-old son of Olympic Glory who won for the second time this season.