Moreira should continue onslaught at Happy Valley

Joao Moreira has a hammerlock on the Hong Kong jockey standings during the 2020-21 season, adding three more wins to his total last Saturday at Sha Tin, and Moreira could be on another winner in the featured seventh race on a rare Thursday card at Sha Tin.

Moreira rides Looking Great, one of 11 entries in race 7, a Class 2 handicap for horses rated 100-80 and carded over 1,800 meters on grass. The 10-race card begins at 10 p.m. Pacific on Wednesday night, and you can catch all the action at DRFBets.com.

Moreira’s win total following last weekend’s racing stands at 149, 28 more than Zac Purton’s second-highest total. Thursday’s program is the fifth-last of the long Hong Kong season, and Moreira seems unlikely to surpass his record win total of 170 during the 201617 season.

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Looking Great breaks from post 11, not great but not the end of the world in a long one-turn race with plenty of straightaway before the horses hit the bend. New Zealand-bred Looking Great, by Holy Roman Emperor, was imported from Australia, where his form improved as he raced over longer trips during 2020, his last start there, a victory, coming at Thursday’s 1,800-meter distance.

Three of Looking Great’s Hong Kong starts came at 1,800 meters, and those have produced two wins and a second-place finish, all in Class 3 competition at Sha Tin. Looking Great moved up to Class 2 in his most recent start and performed decently, finishing fifth of 14 in a 1,600-meter race dominated by front-runners. He carries only 118 pounds Thursday, getting as much as 15 pounds from his higher-rated rivals, and stands a good chance of racing very competitively.

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Trainer Tony Cruz has three runners in the race, including top-rated Helene Leadingstar at 98 and the horse just below him in the ratings, Delightful Laos, rated 93. Helene Leadingstar has made his last two starts in Group 3 handicaps but four races ago ran in a Sha Tin Class 2 over 1,800 meters and finished a flat 11th. Delightful Laos was very sharp earlier in the season but appears to have gone over the top, while Cruz’s third horse, Berlin Tango, does hold some interest. The English import was a respectable third in the 2020 Hampton Court Stakes at the Royal Ascot meeting and after a slow start to his Hong Kong career this season, he woke up in April and May after Cruz began racing the 4-year-old in a hood. Two starts ago, in a Class 2 over 1,800 meters at Happy Valley, Berlin Tango rallied to finish fourth, easily his best showing in Hong Kong, and going over the dirt track in May at Sha Tin he closed from 14th to finish third. Berlin Tango breaks from post 6 and carries 121 pounds.

Blaze Warrior moves up

Three-year-old Blaze Warrior was the big ratings riser of last week, his Hong Kong mark upped from 60 to 71 after a blowout victory on Saturday at Sha Tin. Blaze Warrior had won his career debut at the Class 4 handicap level by 1 1/4 lengths on June 13 and back at the same class and 1,200-meter distance, this time lugging top weight of 133 pounds, he scored by 3 1/4 lengths, his ears pricked at the wire, under Joao Moreira. John Size trains Blaze Warrior, an Australian-bred son of Sebring whom Moreira says will handle longer distances.