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| Staff Writer |
A record crowd at Sha Tin witnessed a day of sporting drama featuring dominant brilliance, shock upsets and heartbreaking tragedy as Champions Day delivered three compelling Group One contests.
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The world's top-rated sprinter Ka Ying Rising put the cherry on a perfect season with another blockbuster display, completing a clean sweep of the Hong Kong Speed Series with victory in the Gr.1 Chairman's Sprint Prize (1,200m).
By landing his eighth success from as many starts this season, David Hayes's superstar matched Hong Kong's single season win record held by Beauty Generation and Lucky Sweynesse.
"What more can you say? Every time you come out here, he produces something special and he did that again today and he didn't even change his leg. He puts them away very quickly," said jockey Zac Purton.
"The track has got a little bit of give in it today, so he's not going to run any faster if people are looking at the clock, but he's run a lot quicker than the other horses today."
Nicely away from gate four, Purton opted to take a sit aboard Ka Ying Rising in a race with plenty of early speed.
Unleashed down the outside, Ka Ying Rising rattled home with a final 400m of 21.78 seconds to beat Japanese raider Satono Reve by two and a quarter lengths, clocking 1:07.88 eased down.
The John Size-trained Helios Express ran third, placing behind Ka Ying Rising for the seventh time this season.
"It was a great ride by Zac. He took the sit and didn't want to get pocketed and went a bit early," said Hayes after Ka Ying Rising bagged his 12th straight win and fourth Group One victory.
"He had a perfect prep and a perfect season. It's just nice nothing went wrong. He probably got to the front a bit early and stargazed today, but he got the job done and he won by a decent margin."
Ka Ying Rising sent his career prize money past US$7.7 million with victory in the US$2.8 million Chairman's Sprint Prize, while he pocketed the US$640,000 Speed Series bonus by adding to his earlier victories in the Gr.1 Centenary Sprint Cup (1,200m) and Gr.1 Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup (1,400m).
"He's going to go straight up to Conghua, he loves it up there, and he'll have a month to himself going out in the beautiful day paddocks," said Hayes. "Then we'll start targeting to hopefully have him ready to race at the start of next season with The Everest in mind."
In one of the biggest shocks in recent Hong Kong racing history, 89-1 outsider Red Lion survived a stewards' inquiry to lower the colours of raging favourite Voyage Bubble in a dramatic Gr.1 Champions Mile.
The rank outsider was allowed to stride to the lead after some contested early fractions, with jockey Hugh Bowman eventually able to control the gallop.
The writing seemed to be on the wall when odds-on favourite Voyage Bubble cruised up to Red Lion at the top of the straight, but John Size's 6YO knuckled down and refused to be passed.
Voyage Bubble pestered him all the way to the line, but last year's second defied the script and a late – if not slightly ambitious – objection to prevail.
"Congratulations to John and the ownership group because he's such a consistent horse and he's a worthy Group One winner, but I'm a bit lost for words to be honest," Bowman said.
"It's fantastic. He's a very consistent, courageous horse. Having had the opportunity to ride him a few times, I had confidence in him."
To say this was a shock would be an understatement. Red Lion enters the history book as the biggest-priced winner of the race, eclipsing the 65-1-win odds for Size's Sight Winner back in 2009.
Red Lion was a useful horse in his early days when trained in Ireland by Andrew Slattery, but no one could have foreseen him turning into a bona fide Group One performer.
"He's been so consistent over the period he's been racing," said Size. "He always does his best and always puts himself in a position to win.
"I think the horse's mind for racing and what is going on inside his brain is so important. Today he showed the determination of a real racehorse – he looked like he thought he could win the race, and he decided he would."
There were no excuses for the favourite Voyage Bubble, who had the perfect stalking trip under James McDonald.
"He was super," said McDonald. "I was really proud of his effort."
There was another huge run in behind, with Sunlight Power helping trainer Ricky Yiu Poon-fai fill both placings.
Hong Kong's Champions Day at Sha Tin was overshadowed by tragedy with the death of Japan's Triple Tiara winner Liberty Island. The 5YO daughter of Duramente went amiss after some scrimmaging in the home straight during the Gr.1 QE II Cup, which was won by her compatriot and fellow Classic winner Tastiera.
Trained by Mitsu Nakauchida for Sunday Racing, Liberty Island followed up her Fillies' Triple Crown success by finishing second to Equinox in the Gr.1 Japan Cup, which was rated the best race of 2023 in the Longines World Rankings.
Though winless since her Classic season, she had also run some good races in defeat, including when finishing runner-up to Romantic Warrior in the Gr.1 Hong Kong Cup last December, and third in the Gr.1 Dubai Sheema Classic of 2024. Liberty Island was bred by Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Racing from the dual Australian Group One winner Yankee Rose.
Following confirmation that Liberty Island had been euthanised after being pulled up lame by jockey Yuga Kawada, Hong Kong Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges said: "I am glad that people bring their horses here, and being a horse owner myself, you know when you have an incident like this and you lose a [treble] Classic winner it is something which is very emotional. I have talked to our Japanese friends, and it is going to take some time for them to overcome this."
Nakauchida was represented by two runners in the race with the other, Prognosis, filling the runner-up spot for the third year in succession. Bahrain-based challenger Calif claimed third place.
"We normally celebrate with champagne, but I feel today in honour of the tremendous filly that this is not the right thing to do. I'm really sad about that but unfortunately this is part of racing," Engelbrecht-Bresges said. "I want to really honour a filly like Liberty Island, who was one of the great race fillies."
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Derby-winning combination of Francis Lui Kin-wai and Craig Williams struck again when Invincible Shield completed a hat-trick in the Class Two Insurance BOCOM Handicap (1,400m), while star Brazilian jockey Joao Moreira finished the Champions Day card off in style by taking the final two races on Family Jewel and Everyone's Star.
"I think today's race meeting had a tremendous atmosphere and we saw tremendous performances on the track," Engelbrecht-Bresges said. "The feedback we got from everybody was that this was a really successful meeting."