Two-year-olds take the spotlight on a Saturday card at Newmarket that includes a pair of Group 1 races as well as a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race for the BC Juvenile Turf.
Enable, a winner of four consecutive Group 1 races in England and Ireland since early June, will be an odds-on favorite to win Europe’s most prestigious race, the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, at Chantilly, France, on Sunday.
If Enable prevails against as many as 17 rivals, she will be the first 3-year-old filly to win the Arc since Treve in 2013 and the seventh female to win the race in the last 10 runnings.
Enable was supplemented to the Arc for approximately $141,000 this week.
Beauty Only, the champion miler in 2016-17 in Hong Kong, will race for the first time this season in Sunday’s Group 3 Celebration Cup at seven furlongs at Sha Tin Racecourse.
Beauty Only’s title year was highlighted by a win in the Hong Kong Mile last December, and the same race is a goal this season.
The Celebration Cup and the Group 3 National Day Cup at five furlongs on turf on Sunday’s program are the first group stakes of the 2017-18 Hong Kong season. Both races are worth $384,216.
SHA TIN SELECTIONS
(Sunday, October 1, 2017)
RACE 1: #8 Flying Noble, #7 Paddington, #3 None Other, #2 Multimax
RACE 2: #7 Ho Ho Feel, #1 Jolly Gene, #5 Gorgeous Again, #2 Sergeant Titanium
RACE 3: #2 Star Of Patch, #5 Super Euro Star, #3 Numero Uno, #1 Lang Tai Sing
RACE 4: #6 Good Days, #1 A Beautiful, #8 Sunny Orient, #4 Laugh Out Loud
RACE 5: #2 Morethanlucky, #5 The Show, #11 Win For Charity, #4 Enormous Honour
Thunder Stomp and Brave Legend look like the most interesting participants in a trio of Class 3 handicaps headlining the Wednesday night card at Happy Valley Racecourse in Hong Kong.
Both horses rise considerably up the ratings after big wins in their respective seasonal debuts. Thunder Stomp starts in race 7, a one-circuit 1,650-meter race, while Brave Legend goes in race 6, a 1,200-meter dash around roughly 1 1/2 turns of Happy Valley’s tight and irregularly configured course.
HAPPY VALLEY SELECTIONS
(Wednesday, September 27)
Brett Davis
Race 1: 2-5-3-8
Race 2: 1-2-7-12
Race 3: 1-10-6-9
Race 4: 2-8-11-1
Race 5: 5-7-2-4
Race 6: 11-1-12-3
Race 7: 3-12-8-7
Race 8: 9-8-4-10
Best Bet - Race 6: #11 Starlight
Longshot - Race 1: #3 Look Eras
Best Play - Race 3: Quin 1,10
HAPPY VALLEY SELECTIONS
(Wednesday, September 27, 2017)
RACE 1: #6 I'm The Won For U, #3 Look Eras, #8 The Legend, #2 Generous Bobo
RACE 2: #7 Haymaker, #2 Show Mission, #1 Massive Millennium, #5 Rocket Let Win
RACE 3: #1 Little Island, #9 Fine With Me, #2 Works Of Art, #3 Celestial Arrow
RACE 4: #5 Rock The Tree, #11 Spicy Double, #1 Victory Follow Me, #4 My Gift
Mongolian King beat six of the 13 horses he faces Sunday at Sha Tin in the featured $238,162 Yuen Long Handicap – and don’t think the Hong Kong Jockey Club handicapper doesn’t know it.
Mongolian King carried 120 pounds when he won Sept. 3, but his rating is up six points after that victory, and in Sunday’s 10th and final race (post time: 5:45 a.m. Eastern), his impost is up to 127. Mongolian King, a 5-year-old New Zealand-bred gelding, started showing steady improvement midway through last season, but bettors will be pondering the height of his ceiling in Sunday’s race.
SHA TIN SELECTIONS
(Sunday, September 24, 2017)
RACE 1: #6 Je Pense, #4 King Bountiful, #1 Industrialist Way, #3 Cloud Nine
RACE 2: #9 Oriental Fantasia, #5 Actuariat, #1 A Fast One, #4 Smiling Glory
RACE 3: #4 Endearing, #11 Multigogo, #8 Creme Brulee, #2 All You Know
RACE 4: #1 Wingold, #3 Soul Achiever, #14 Starry Starlies, #11 Plain Blue Banner
RACE 5: #3 Red Elysees, #8 Newswire Free, #6 Autopay, #5 Contribution
The Hong Kong Jockey Club on Tuesday announced the creation of a Group 1 stakes triple-header on April 29 next year.
The HKJC has combined on one card the Champions Mile over 1,600 meters, the Chairman’s Sprint Prize over 1,200 meters, and the Queen Elizabeth II Cup over 2,000 meters. The Champions Mile and the Chairman’s Sprint Prize were moved one week to create the program.
All three races got purse increases for the 2018 edition. The QE II is worth $3.075 million, the Champion’s Mile $2.3 million, and the Chairman’s Sprint Prize $2.05 million.