Class 3 handicaps often are the highest level of racing on a Wednesday night at Happy Valley Racecourse in Hong Kong, but a pair of Class 1s brighten this week’s nine race program.
Both races are for horses rated 110 to 85. Race 3 is carded at 1,650 meters, one lap around the Happy Valley course. Race 6 is 1,200 meters. First post for the program is 5:45 a.m. Eastern and you can find all the action at DRFBets.com.
Led by race winner Double Your Tee, the first seven finishers of the Group 3 Hobart Cup on Feb. 7 are reunited under comparable conditions in the Group 3 Launceston Cup at Launceston Racecourse on Wednesday in Australia.
Both races have purses of $197,950 and are run at 1 1/2 miles as handicaps. This time, the venue has moved from Hobart, and there are changes in the weights. Double Your Tee carried 120 pounds in the Hobart Cup, but has been assigned top weight of 130 pounds for the Launceston Cup.
Charlatan, Knicks Go, and Max Player are headed back to the United States from Saudi Arabia later this week, while Sleepy Eyes Todd, Tacitus, Channel Maker, and Cowan have gone on from Saudi Arabia to Dubai.
Sleepy Eyes Todd, who was fifth, and Tacitus, who was seventh in the Saudi Cup on Saturday, are being pointed to the Dubai World Cup on March 27. Channel Maker is headed to the Sheema Classic on the same program at Meydan Racecourse. Channel Maker held a lead in midstretch but wound up second Saturday in the $1 million Neom Turf Cup at King Abdulaziz Racecourse.
Golden Sixty made it 13 straight wins, but only by the narrowest of margins as he got home by a nose Sunday at Sha Tin in the Group 1, $1.55 million Hong Kong Gold Cup.
In a slow-paced, stilted affair over 2,000 meters – probably a longer trip than ideal for this crack miler – Hong Kong’s best horse extended his winning streak with a thrilling victory over Furore.
Cafe Pharoah earned a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 6 at Del Mar with an attractive win in Sunday’s Group 1 February Stakes at Tokyo Racecourse in Japan.
The $1.84 million February Stakes, run at a mile on dirt, was Cafe Pharoah’s fourth stakes win and his first since the Grade 3 Sirius Stakes in October. Cafe Pharoah is a Kentucky-bred by American Pharoah, the prominent stallion’s first Grade 1 winner in Japan.
Veteran horses will be ridden by young jockeys in the sixth race at Bendigo Racecourse in Australia on Tuesday.
The sprint, run at 6 1/2 furlongs, is restricted to apprentice riders and lacks a clear favorite in a full field of 12.
Zoujea, the mount of Lachlan Neindorf, was a slight favorite at 9-2 as of Saturday on the basis of a third-place finish in a six-furlong handicap for fillies and mares at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne on Jan. 29. Neindorf rode a winner at Morphettville on Jan. 30, but was winless with 15 mounts in February through Saturday.
True Self, an 8-year-old mare ridden by a female jockey, the Englishwoman Hollie Doyle, rallied from the rear of the field and ran down American champion Channel Maker to win the $1.5 million Neom Turf Cup, the first race on the Saudi Cup card Saturday at King Abdulaziz Racecourse in Saudi Arabia.
Emirates Knight, a huge longshot, finished third, 4 3/4 lengths behind Channel Maker, as True Self was the only horse making up much ground. The winner paid $14.60 in North America, where Channel Maker was an odds-on favorite.
There are three important races Sunday in Hong Kong but one horse rises above the rest, Golden Sixty, who will be heavily favored to extend his winning streak to 13 when he starts in the Group 1, $1.55 million Hong Kong Gold Cup.
The post position draw for Sunday’s Grade 1 February Stakes at Tokyo Racecourse in Japan was not kind to the recent stakes winner Auvergne and Red le Zele.
In a full field of 16, Auvergne and Red le Zele will start from posts 14 and 16 in the one-mile dirt race, which has a purse of $1.84 million and is the first Grade 1 race of 2021 at a Japan Racing Association track. The February Stakes starts on turf from a chute on the backstretch and joins the inner dirt course more than seven furlongs from the finish.
