Moreira, California Rad reunited in Class 2 feature at Sha Tin

The last time Joao Moreira rode California Rad was the last time California Rad won a race, and the race he won, on Jan. 1, was run under the same conditions as the featured 10th race Sunday at Sha Tin, a Class 2 handicap for horses rated 100-80 and carded at 1,200 meters.

Who Moreira rides means something because the Brazilian-born rider comes into Saturday’s 10-race card with 103 wins during the Hong Kong season, 20 more than Zac Purton’s second-highest total. Hong Kong jockeys don’t have agents, hustling their own mounts. Moreira often rides for trainer John Size, who has two entrants in the Sunday feature, both coming off wins, but Antoine Hamelin is aboard Ping Hai Bravo while Purton landed the ride on Wind N Grass.

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Meanwhile, Moreira is back aboard California Rad, who is rated 98 and thus carries a weighty impost of 132 pounds. When Moreira won on him Jan. 1, California Rad, rallying from eighth to first through the final 400 meters, toted 130 and got up by a nose. Subsequent to that race, California Rad, trained by Tony Cruz, got into two less suitable spots, stretching from 1,200 meters, which seems like his best trip, to 1,400 and two races ago rising up to Class 1 competition. He was seventh and fourth in those races and stands a strong chance of doing much better Sunday.

Ping Hai Bravo, masterfully maneuvered through the 2020-21 season by Size, has won four of his last five races. The form surge came at the same time as two changes, the addition of a tongue tie and a cut back in trip to straight-course 1,000-meter races at Sha Tin. It remains to be seen if Ping Hai Bravo can go as effectively around a bend and over an additional furlong, though he was a Class 3 course and distance winner last season – when ridden by Moreira.

Wind N Grass brings his own two-race winning streak into Sunday’s contest, but both those victories, as well as his lone tally last season, came at Happy Valley.

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Top-rated Duke Wai gets some weight off his back because seven-pound apprentice Jerry Chau rides, but this horse has been stuck in Class 2 competition, without posting a win, 10 races in a row.

Seattle Choice likely wants a longer distance and hasn’t raced in more than a year, but the South African import has made only five Hong Kong starts and won his last two before the layoff.

First post for his card, on which you can wager at DRFBets.com, is 12:45 a.m. Eastern.