Advertisement
Advertisement

'Peter is an excellent trainer who gives horses the time they need,' enthuses Irish rider

'I really like this horse, he's really something,' a delighted John Egan said yesterday at Happy Valley after he brought home Lucky Sabre in the final event to complete a double for both himself and trainer Peter Ho. The jockey bounced back from a suspension and was quickly into winning form on Ho's Jade Ruyi in the fifth event, then reinforced the message over the same 1,800-metre course with Lucky Sabre in the last.

'He's a very nice horse, Lucky Sabre,' Egan reiterated later. 'I don't know yet if he's going to make the sort of standard you'd need to run in the International races, that's aiming very high, but he is very good and he keeps improving and he has his heart in the right place.

'When the gap came for him today he really charged into it. When he was beaten at his last start here, I wouldn't say he had that much go wrong, but he didn't have everything go quite right either over the 1,650 metres. Today, the switch up to 1,800 metres showed us the real Lucky Sabre and he will get further, too.'

It was Lucky Sabre's third win over the Happy Valley 1,800m, and the fifth victory this season for the Ho-Egan combination, which seems to be blooming. 'Peter is an excellent trainer who gives horses the time they need,' Egan said. 'You take a horse like Jade Ruyi. There isn't a lot of him and last season he was quite small and a little bit weak. Now a horse like that, if you pushed him too much too early, you wouldn't have a horse at all as a four-year-old. Instead, he's been patient with him and has been able to win two races already this season.'

While Jade Ruyi is scoring in the lower grades, Lucky Sabre is operating at the other end of the scale and his win yesterday, after switching back towards what was thought to be the slower inside part of the track, was full of character. 'Where I was, I didn't really have the option to switch out,' Egan said. 'And it was the last race of the day and the inside had not had that much use, so it might have been better by that stage.'

It was the second time yesterday that Egan's options had been narrowed by champion rider Douglas Whyte. Whyte swept around Jade Ruyi on rival favourite Melrose Star earlier in the day to pocket Egan's mount momentarily in the back straight, but the Irishman was able to slip through inside horses to escape the snooker soon after.

On Lucky Sabre, Egan again had Whyte (Magic Hands) on his outside but turned back inside to wriggle free. 'That's good competitive riding,' Egan said. 'Douglas is quite within the rules to try to pocket me - and I was happy with the final result both times.'

The two newest trainers in Hong Kong both struck out with wins yesterday as Manfred Man Ka-leung scored in the opener with Winmark and John Size continued his consistent run with Aficionado's victory in the fourth contest, giving him five wins.

After leading when beaten in the shadows of the post at his first run this season, Aficionado (Shane Dye) was ridden behind yesterday but the plan was almost thrown into confusion prior to the race. 'Shane thought Sir Timah would lead the race and told us he was going to sit behind him, then we heard the announcement that Sir Timah may be ridden off the pace so we weren't sure what would happen,' Size said. 'In the end, the jockey on Sir Timah probably didn't have any option but to go forward when there was not that much speed. Shane was able to give Aficionado a nice run behind a tempo that was very comfortable for him.'

The four-year-old looked good in winning, although Size was not getting too carried away with the Class Four effort. 'He had a nice weight drop today which helps with these lower-class horses when they have to accelerate,' he said. 'But he looks like a horse who might win again.'

Size has enjoyed a great start in Hong Kong but just can't quite break through for a double. His other runner, Dancing Surpass, was beaten a head in the previous race.

Winmark gave Man his second success after failing to flatter on the all-weather last start. 'He had a few traffic problems on the all-weather last week but today Anton Marcus rode him very well. He sat him off the pace and kept him out of trouble,' Man said. 'I think that coming back to 1,650m from 1,800m helped him, too. His run at 1,600m two starts ago was very good and around the mile might be his best distance.'

Post