Hong Kong: Saturday card at Sha Tin front-loaded

They’re starting out with both a bang and a whimper Sunday at Sha Tin.

The first two contests on a 10-race card, a Class 1 handicap over 1,650 meters on dirt and a Class 2 handicap at 1,800 meters on turf, are the highest-level races on the program. They also have the shortest fields, six horses each. Combine the two groups and you’d get a more standard Hong Kong field size.

A six-horse field in a race over about 1 1/8 miles that lacks real pace: That’s a handicapping equation with a similar solution the world over. Look for lone speed. Enjoying might just the ticket in race 2, the one-turn 1,800-meter race open to horses rated 105-80.

Enjoying has been a solid Class 2 citizen basically his entire 19-race Hong Kong career. That’s because he never wins – literally. Nineteen Hong Kong starts and zero victories. Oddly, when Enjoying, who was called Global Exchange at the time, raced in Australia during 2018 and 2019 he was a veritable win machine, winning four times from seven starts, including twice at the Group 2 level. He began his Hong Kong career in November 2019 with a local rating of 87 and comes into Sunday’s start rated 86.

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Call it a model of consistency or a horse just treading water, but Enjoying enters Sunday’s start in strong form. Throw out a failed dirt experiment three races ago and he’s been second or third in his last three outings, showing pace in all of them. He gets a jockey change Sunday to Joao Moreira, who never has ridden Enjoying. Moreira’s nickname is "Magic Man"; perhaps he can finally pull a Hong Kong win out of Enjoying’s hat.

Top rated Butterfield has made nine of his last 10 starts in group stakes races and has not started as low as the Class 2 level in a dozen outings. The last time he did, in an 1,800-meter race at Sha Tin, he won, but Butterfield carried 122 pounds that day. Even with a three-pound apprentice rider named, he must lug 130 around the course Sunday, while Enjoying is weighted at just 116.

In at only 113 pounds is Looking Great, who could be the one to tag Enjoying if the latter plays his typical waiting game in deep stretch. Looking Great comes into this start with the highest rating of his Hong Kong career and has positional pace to stay close to the lead, if not set the pace himself.

The opener, the Class 1 on dirt for horses rated 110-85, looks competitive. Top-rated Will Power already was proven over Sha Tin dirt but showed a new dimension in his most recent dirt race Dec. 29, stretching out from 1,200-meter sprints to rally and win over this 1,650-meter trip. With plenty of early pace signed on, the closing tactics employed in that successful outing could work again, but Will Power must overcome a 133-pound impost, giving between four and 20 pounds to his rivals.

Californiadeepshot, who carries 129 pounds, was beaten 1 1/2 lengths by Will Power in that Dec. 29 race, left vulnerable late by a protracted early and middle pace skirmish. The gelding does not have to be ridden that way and Moreira might let Telecom Fighters and Hongkong Great fight it out on the lead, sliding into a sweet stalking trip on Californiadeepshot.

First post for the program is midnight Eastern. Catch all the action at DRFBets.com.