Wet weather in Australia has forced the transfer of Sunday’s program at tiny Armidale Racecourse to Tamworth Racecourse about 55 miles to the southwest. The feature race on the eight-race program remains the Armidale Cup, which was scheduled for 1 3/16 miles at Armidale but will be run at a mile at Tamworth.
Stablemates Ellsberg and Steely will be the first two choices in a crowded field of 20 in Saturday’s Group 2 Villiers Stakes at a mile at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, Australia.
Last month at Del Mar, a pair of Japan-based horses won two Breeders' Cup races, the first time a horse from Japan had won at the Breeders' Cup. Five weeks later, Japanese horses have a serious chance to win all four Group 1s on the Hong Kong International Races card Sunday at Sha Tin.
On Sunday, his legend growing by the start, Golden Sixty will try to take his place among two-time winners of the Hong Kong Mile, facing 10 foes in the most anticipated of the four Group 1s among the Hong Kong International Races.
Declan Schuster's Hong Kong Selections and Analysis for Sunday, December 12, 2021, at Sha Tin.
Last Saturday, the veteran Australian gelding Niccanova was third by slightly less than a length in the Tattersall’s Recognition Stakes at Doomben. Friday, Niccanova is entered in the $93,275 Brisbane Handicap at about a mile at Doomben in what will be the quickest turnaround of his career, but a situation far from unprecedented.
Group 1-winning trainers Frederic Rossi, Cedric Rossi, and Charley Rossi were among 15 people taken into French police custody Tuesday, according to multiple published reports in France and England. The arrests took place in Marseille and Paris as part of an investigation into doping and forgery, the reports said.
Hong Kong Selections for Wednesday, December 8, 2021 at Happy Valley.
It’s Classified had a rude debut against winners in Australia in July, finishing seventh of nine Southern Hemisphere 3-year-old fillies in a seven-furlong handicap at Sandown Racecourse in Melbourne. Nearly five months later, farther to the west in the Australian state of Victoria, It’s Classified should have an easier time in a handicap for fillies and mares at 5 1/2 furlongs at Warrnambool on Thursday.
The Wednesday card at Happy Valley is all about the riders. Four of the program’s 10 races – the fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth – form the International Jockey’s Championship, an annual Happy Valley fixture the Wednesday before the Hong Kong International Races on Sunday at Sha Tin.
