Glorious Spectrum can land his first Hong Kong win in the featured 10th race Sunday at Sha Tin.
The Australian-bred 5-year-old, imported after racing two seasons in Italy, had two wins and a second during the 2018-2019 Hong Kong season and has two more runner-up finishes from three races during his 2019-2020 campaign. He lost by a nose May 24 at Sha Tin racing at this Class 2 handicap level and over this same 1,400-meter distance, and Glorious Spectrum is well overdue for a breakthrough.
Three weeks after she thumped fillies and mares in the Grade 1 Victoria Mile at Tokyo Racecourse, Almond Eye will be an odds-on favorite to win Sunday’s Grade 1 Yasuda Kinen at a mile at the same venue against males.
The lads may not stand a chance.
A good turf course may be what the veteran gelding Guizot needs to end a four-race losing streak and win the Swan Hill Cup for the first time. Sunday’s $78,412 Swan Hill Cup is a race for milers in Australia.
Guizot, a 7-year-old Irish-bred, was sixth in the 2018 Swan Hill Cup and second by a head in the race last year. The Swan Hill Cup is the signature race at Swan Hill Racecourse, located well north of Melbourne in the Australian interior.
Quadrilateral, who won all three of her 2-year-old starts, including the Group 1 Fillies Mile, is favored over Millisle and Love in the Group 1 English 1000 Guineas on Sunday at Newmarket.
Trained by Roger Charlton for her breeder, Khalid Abdullah, Quadrilateral showed her quality second time out last year winning a conditions race at Newbury by nine lengths. That victory propelled the daughter of Frankel into the Fillies Mile, run like the 1000 Guineas over a straight mile at Newmarket, where she was a head better than Powerful Breeze, who’s not part of Sunday’s field.
Ghaiyyath was going to be heavily favored and tough to beat in the Sheema Classic, a race that was canceled because of coronavirus, but instead of winning a late March Group 1 in Dubai, he conquered a Group 1 in early June at Newmarket, leading from start to finish in the Coronation Cup.
There’s no disputing Pinatubo was a sensational 2-year-old of 2019, but what kind of 3-year-old he’ll be in 2020 will become more apparent Saturday at Newmarket, where Pinatubo starts as the heavy favorite in the Group 1 English 2000 Guineas.
Pinatubo hasn’t scared anyone away, with 14 rivals set to face him in this straight-course mile, the first classic race in the COVID-19-delayed English flat season.
Winless in his first seven starts, Top Fred returned from a three-month break to record a breakthrough performance in a maiden race at six furlongs at tiny Swan Hill Racecourse in Australia in April. That was followed by another win at the same venue in a six-furlong handicap on May 11.
The distances may have been the key. In December and January, Top Fred was racing at 1 1/4 miles. The shorter trip seems to be a better fit, which makes Top Fred well-suited to a handicap at 6 3/4 furlongs at Donald Racecourse on Friday.
Group 1 racing returns to England on Friday for the first time since last autumn, while Ghaiyyath races in England for the first time since autumn 2017.
Ghaiyyath is solidly favored in antepost wagering for the Group 1 Coronation Cup, the Friday feature at Newmarket. The 1 1/2-mile fixture usually is held at Epsom Downs, but nothing is usual right now in this post-COVID-19 racing-shutdown world, with the British Horseracing Authority rearranging major races to best fit a new calendar. Racing resumed in England on Monday, with an all-weather card at Newcastle.
