Weather may dictate Rebel's Romance's chances in Champions and Chater Cup

Rebel’s Romance has won Group 1 races over 1 1/2 miles in Germany, America, and the United Arab Emirates. Sunday, he’ll try to win one in Hong Kong, where Rebel’s Romance starts in the Champions and Chater Cup at Sha Tin.

The primary opposition Rebel’s Romances faces is the weather. How much and how persistent rain will be on Saturday into Sunday is unclear, but the Sha Tin course will not be fast and firm the way Rebel’s Romance prefers. Yet Rebel’s Romance, a Godolphin homebred trained by Charlie Appleby, can take a considerable step back from his best form and still return to England victorious.

The Champions and Chater Cup, worth $1.66 million, drew a field of eight, and the other seven would have no chance to beat Rebel’s Romance in a fair fight, especially in race, like Sunday’s, run at level weights. But there are reasons to ponder the favorite’s potential failure.

Rebel’s Romance had a rough 2023, especially at Saratoga, where he clipped heels and unseated jockey Richard Mullen in the Bowling Green Stakes. That was just bad luck, but the two performances bookending the Bowling Green, at Meydan and at Belmont, simply were bad. In December, Appleby got Rebel’s Romance back on track with an all-weather win over the good horse Elegant Man, and Rebel’s Romance went on to win in Qatar before a perfect trip pressing a walking pace helped him to victory in the $6 million Sheema Classic.

Is Rebel’s Romance back to his best self? Possibly, but the prospect of a wet course on top of the tough ship to Sha Tin, where the home team always holds an advantage, might encourage a bettor to oppose the chalk.

The problem is finding the right horse. Five of them – La City Blanche, Five G Patch, Moments In Time, Russian Emperor, and Senor Toba -- exit the Group 3 Queen Mother Memorial Handicap, a 1 1/2-mile contest May 5, the prep for Sunday’s race.

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La City Blanche got up by a nose over Five G Patch that afternoon while carrying just 115 pounds, and he picks up 11 pounds in the Champions and Chater Cup. The gelding set the pace and finished seventh in his only other 1 1/2-mile start, the Group 1 Hong Kong Vase in December, and waddled home 12th in a Class 3 handicap in his only start over a course with give in the ground.

Five G Patch rates the better chance between the two. He gave La City Blanche three pounds in the Queen Mother, is a far more proven horse at the distance, and ran to form in his two starts over good-to-yielding going. Still, neither one of the top two in the Queen Mother, nor the fourth-place finisher, pacesetting Moments in Time, is winning the Champions and Chater Cup.

Russian Emperor won the last two renewals of the Champions and Chater Cup and until the last six months would have posed an obvious threat to Rebel’s Romance. Maybe he still does. His 2023-24 Hong Kong form, however, has been abysmal. Russian Emperor has been no better than seventh in five outings. While he was seventh in the Queen Mother, owing to his previous level of accomplishment Russian Emperor toted 135 pounds, giving La City Blanche 20 pounds and the second-highest rate horse 14. Moreover, perhaps the best race of Russian Emperor’s career came in February 2022, when he won the Group 1 Hong Kong Gold Cup at 1 1/4 miles by more than four lengths over a rain-soaked course rated yielding. If Russian Emperor ever is going to bounce back, Sunday is the day.

Straight Aron won the 2023 Queen Mother and was fourth in this race a year ago, but rather than run in the Queen Mother, he comes into Sunday’s contest following a non-competitive 10th while overmatched in the 1 1/4-mile Queen Elizabeth II Cup, a Group 1 on April 28. Straight Aron is accustomed to lugging 126 pounds and heavier, but the concern is his bad loss last month came over a yielding course.

True top-level 1 1/2-mile horses do not abound in Hong Kong, where nearly all the best racing comes between six furlongs and 1 1/4 miles. Rebel’s Romance came for the right race. If the rain keeps falling, he might have come on the wrong weekend.

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