Hong Kong: Rewarding Together gets manageable weight while moving up in class
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
It’s not easy stringing together wins in Hong Kong, where the handicapping system functions fluidly creating well-matched races. One avenue to repeat success is a lightly raced horse who wins well at one handicap level while carrying a high weight, and then can move up one class and have his burden reduced. Rewarding Together is just such a horse.
Rewarding Together, a 5-year-old on Southern Hemisphere time with only eight career starts, walloped Class 4 handicappers Jan. 5 at Happy Valley, winning by two lengths while coasting across the finish as the 132-pound second-rated runner. Wednesday, he tries Class 3 for the first time in the last of nine races, a 1,200-meter dash that drew a full field of a dozen. Even after his rating rose nine points to 64 following his recent success, Rewarding Together totes a manageable 124 pounds from a good enough draw in post 3, and he ought to have a decent chance of winning his second race in a row.
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The nightcap is one of three Class 3s on a program that starts at 5:45 a.m. Eastern. You can catch all the action at DRFBets.com.
Astrologer, one of two high-weighted runners at 133 pounds, also exits a win, though his came at the Class 3 level, also on Happy Valley’s Jan. 5 program. Astrologer, just a 3-year-old, won by a nose under Joao Moreira, who takes a return call on the gelding and breaks from post 4, right next to Rewarding Together and jockey Matthew Chadwick.
The other Class 3s are race 8, carded at 1,650 meters, and race 1, a 1,000-meter contest.
Ho admits blame for Golden Sixty defeat
Jockey Vincent Ho said his ride Sunday in the Stewards Cup at Sha Tin cost Golden Sixty a chance to extend his winning streak to 17.
Golden Sixty was defeated for the first time in about 2 1/2 years when Waikuku got the jump on him and had enough to hold off fast-finishing Golden Sixty.
Ho, in comments to Hong Kong media, confirmed the obvious, that he had allowed Golden Sixty to fall much too far behind a tepid pace in the 1,600-meter race. Furthermore, Ho said, had he kept his mount inside rather than wheeling wide for his stretch run, Golden Sixty might have won.