Paul Lally:
Race1 7-3-14-2
Race2 8-1-4-3
Race3 8-2-1-12
Race4 2-1-13-11
Race5 10-5-11-3
Race6 2-1-9-11
Race7 1-3-2-5
Race8 2-5-13-3
Race9 4-5-8-12
Race10 5-6-14-2
Best Bet: Race10 N5 Not Usual Star
Longshot: R1 N7 Plentiful
Play: Race3 QQP 1-2-8
Tom Wood:
R1: 3-12-2-14-8 QQP 2,3,12
Super Sunny Sing has gone from a struggling sprinter last fall to a blooming router in Hong Kong in recent months.
A four-race winning streak since mid-December, including a race at 1 1/8 miles last month, has left Super Sunny Sing among the leading contenders for Sunday’s $3.05 million Hong Kong Derby for 4-year-olds at Sha Tin Racecourse.
Galopin Des Champs was not the best jumper in Friday’s Grade 1 Cheltenham Gold Cup in England - until it mattered the most.
After the gelding made a few jumping mistakes early in the race at 3 5/16 miles, and again three fences from the finish, Galopin Des Champs was perfect over the final two fences en route to a popular win in the $752,500 Gold Cup at Cheltenham Racecourse, 100 miles west of London.
Ever since Cigar shipped for the inaugural Dubai World Cup in 1996, the race has strongly been flavored by American participation. Deluxe Meydan Racecourse, which replaced the old Nad Al Sheba course, opened in 2010 with a synthetic surface, but after American participation waned during the early Meydan years, dirt replaced synthetic. American horses have won four of the seven World Cups on Meydan dirt. But the dynamic has shifted again.
Cylinder has won consecutive Group 2 stakes this year for 2-year-olds and will be favored to win the world’s richest race for juveniles on Friday evening – the Group 1 Golden Slipper Stakes at Rosehill Gardens Racecourse in Sydney, Australia.
The gelding Burrandana closed from 15th to finish third in a seven-furlong handicap at Albury Racecourse in Australia on Feb. 25, a loss that ended a three-race winning streak.
Had Burrandana finished first or second, he would have qualified for a $330,500 stakes at Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, restricted to horses based with stables in the state of New South Wales.
Burrandana has one more chance to qualify for that lucrative final when he starts in a field of 16 in a trial race at Goulburn Racecourse on Thursday evening.
The last time Galopin Des Champs raced at Cheltenham Racecourse in England, the gelding fell at the final fence while holding a 12-length lead in a Grade 1 steeplechase for novices last March. He was the odds-on favorite.
Galopin Des Champs has not made a mistake since, winning three Grade 1 races in Ireland since last April.
The 7-year-old’s improved manners have made him the horse to beat in a return trip to England for Friday’s Grade 1 Cheltenham Gold Cup at 3 5/16 miles, jump racing’s leading weight-for-age race.
