The Far East’s two best sprinters, Sacred Kingdom and Rocket Man, clash at Sha Tin on Sunday in the Group 2, $387,000 Jockey Club Sprint, the local prep for the Dec. 12 Hong Kong Sprint.
Eight foreign horses were confirmed by the Japan Racing Association (JRA) on Friday for next Sunday’s $6.1 million Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse. The invading octet will be led by Canadian International winner Joshua Tree and includes a single North American hopeful, Canada’s Ian Black-trained Fifty Proof, the fifth-place finisher in the Canadian International.
Goldikova was named the Cartier Racing Awards Horse of the Year on Tuesday, an honor emblematic of the best horse trained in Europe. The winner of five Group or Grade 1 races in 2010, the Wertheimer brothers’ 5-year-old mare capped her championship season with her third Breeders’ Cup Mile victory on Nov. 6.
Harbinger is the world leader in the latest World Thoroughbred Rankings computed by national handicappers from all of the world’s major racing nations. Blame rates second place in the world standings at 129, a mark awarded for his narrow victory over Zenyatta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Zenyatta is rated in a four-way tie for 10th place along with three-time Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Goldikova.
Mike Smith will represent the United States in the 24th World Super Jockeys Series at Tokyo Racecourse on Saturday, Nov. 27, the day before the 30th running of the $6.1 million Japan Cup at the same track.
Johnny Murtagh, whose relationship with Coolmore and Aidan O’Brien will cease at the end of the year, has been hired by the Aga Khan as his No. 1 rider in Ireland. Murtagh will now be first in line for the 120 of the Aga’s horses trained in Ireland by John Oxx and Michael Halford.
Johnny Murtagh and Aidan O’Brien may be parting company at the end of the year, but they are going out with a bang as the duo landed the Group 1, $340,000 Criterium de Saint-Cloud on Saturday with Recital.
Irian rallied late to win the Group 2, $387,000 Jockey Club Cup at Sha Tin on Sunday, thus presenting himself as a key contender for the Hong Kong Cup on Dec. 12.
Britain’s English and Irish Oaks winner Snow Fairy scored an astounding four-length victory in the $2.1 million Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Kyoto on Sunday.
Ave comes into Sunday’s $2.1 million Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup at Kyoto in the best form of her career. The Roger Attfield-trained Ave is fresh from a victory in the Flower Bowl Invitational at Belmont Park on Oct. 2, but has drawn unfortunately wide in a field of 18 fillies and mares going 1 3/8 miles.
