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| Staff Writer |
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Aidan O'Brien, Ireland's champion trainer, has brought his best team ever to compete in the four Group One races during Sunday's LONGINES Hong Kong International Races at Sha Tin. He is the only trainer this year to have runners in all four races.
His assault begins with Warm Heart in the Gr.1 LONGINES Hong Kong Vase, followed by Aesop's Fables in the Gr.1 LONGINES Hong Kong Sprint, Cairo in the Gr.1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile, and finally, 4YO colt Luxembourg in the Gr.1 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup.
“I think there is no doubt that it is,” O’Brien replied when asked if this was the best team he’d brought to Hong Kong.
“It’s very difficult to win races here and you don’t come with second-raters.”
Luxembourg and the filly Warm Heart are regarded as perhaps his best chances of claiming more Group One glory, but the other two should not be discounted in the highly competitive fields where the locals and a contingent of Japanese horses will also mount serious challenges.
“The plan with Luxembourg was that he would always go to Ascot and then come here but he missed Ascot and has come here,” O’Brien said.
“The filly is a nice enough filly.”
According to O'Brien, Warm Heart's form doesn't suggest that she performs better at a mile and a half than at a mile and a quarter. Despite this, Warm Heart has already won two Gr.1 races this year at 2371m and 2400m, and finished second in a recent 2000m race in America.
She has previously won five out of six races at both 2000m and 2400m in three different countries. O'Brien has won three out of the past eight editions of the Hong Kong Vase with Highland Reel (2015 and 2017) and Mogul (2020). Ryan Moore will be riding all four of O'Brien's horses, and he has worked hard to meet Warm Heart's allocated weight of 117 pounds after being injured in a race fall in Japan last month.
“I was talking to him yesterday and he said his weight is very good,” O’Brien said.
Moore made his return to the saddle on Wednesday night at the Happy Valley meeting after his fall in Japan.