Paul Lally:
R1 13-12-8-10
R2 4-9-1-3
R3 4-8-2-1
R4 9-8-6-5
R5 6-14-7-3
R6 2-9-3-8
R7 1-5-2-4
R8 1-4-2-3
R9 2-3-5-10
R10 6-9-3-1
Best Bet R10 N6 California Spangle
Longshot R1 N13 Chiu Chow Brother
Play Race10 QQP 3-6-9
:: Hong Kong: Free PPs, picks, analysis, replays, and live streaming
Andrew Le Jeune:
R1: 8-1-12-10
R2: 4-9-11-14
Gran Alegria enters the final race of her career, Sunday’s Mile Championship at Hanshin, in a novel situation. The champion 5-year-old mare carries her first two-race losing streak into the Group 1, $2.36 million Championship Mile, run around a right-handed bend Gran Alegria knows well.
In April 2019, she won the Oka Sho, the Japanese 1000 Guineas, over 1,600 meters at Hanshin, and a year ago she beat Indy Champ by three-quarters of a length in this very race.
Fourteen. That’s the number for Golden Sixty, who tries to win his 15th straight race when he makes his 2021-22 Hong Kong season debut Sunday at Sha Tin. The 5-year-old gelding glows brightest in Hong Kong’s constellation of racehorses, the jurisdiction’s reigning Horse of the Year, but is he more than a regional sensation? Maybe, maybe not, but we likely won’t learn much more about Golden Sixty from the Group 2, $610,000 Jockey Club Mile, where he will be heavily favored to defeat six rivals in a prep for the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile next month.
R1 3-2-7-10
R2 3-4-6-8
R3 3-1-4-6
R4 10-6-8-2
R5 4-1-5-10
R6 9-1-2-11
R7 9-7-2-11
R8 5-2-1-3
R9 2-5-10-11
Best Bet R9 N2 Fa Fa
Longshot R3 N3 Universal Go Go
Play R8 QQP 1-2-5
:: Hong Kong: Free PPs, picks, analysis, replays, and live streaming
Savaquin, a closer with no early speed, needs pace help to win races, and the presence of his John Size-trained stablemate Red Desert could help ensure he gets it in the featured seventh race Wednesday at Happy Valley.
Akai Ito led home a parade of longshots in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth Cup on Sunday at Hanshin Racecourse in Japan.
Rallying from 13th in a 17-horse field, and making her big move around the final turn, Akai Ito collared the leaders about a furlong from the finish and went on to a two-length victory in the 1 3/8-mile Queen Elizabeth, which was restricted to fillies and mares.
Akaitorino Musume won her first Group 1 on Oct. 17 and might be favored to capture her second Sunday at Hanshin Racecourse in the $2.16 million Queen Elizabeth Cup.
The Queen Elizabeth, contested around right-handed turns at 1 3/8 miles, drew a field of 17 fillies and mares, several of which are stark longshots. Akaitorino Musume, a 3-year-old, as of Friday rated no worse than a close second choice at about 5-2 behind 4-year-old Lei Papale. Win Marilyn, listed at about 5-1, was the only other entrant priced at single digit win odds.
Knicks Go is the highest-rated Thoroughbred in the latest edition of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings.
Previously rated 124, Knicks Go’s mark was raised to 128 following his dominant victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 6 at Del Mar. That rating just tops three European horses – 2021 Derby winner Adayar, 4-year-old colt Mishriff, and retired 3-year-old St Mark’s Basilica – in update rankings released Thursday by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, which convenes the global panel of racing officials who set these ratings.
