Sacred Kingdom retains his supremacy
The spirit was willing, the flesh just strong enough but Sacred Kingdom's seventh Group One win in the Kent & Curwen Centenary Sprint Cup yesterday down the straight 1,000m did little to allay the feeling the gelding is now vulnerable.
'How can you complain when he's winning Group Ones? But having said that, he's just not doing what he normally did before,' said Brett Prebble after the three-quarter length victory over surprise packet Dim Sum. 'I'm so familiar with the great feeling he gives a jockey and he's still got that great explosive acceleration, but it doesn't last as long as it used to. That's just age and it happens to all athletes. He has nothing to prove and it's great to have him win again.'
Notching up the 17th win of his career, Sacred Kingdom looked like making the first leg of the Hong Kong Speed series a cake walk at the 200m as he swept past Sweet Sanette and early leader Dim Sum. He quickly took a length and a half lead, but then seemed to put his cue in the rack and the margin was diminishing again on the line.
'We know that he does idle when he hits the front these days, but he just seemed to be doing it a bit tough when he got there this time,' Prebble said. 'Anyway, he's shown that he is still very competitive at this domestic Group One level and the second leg of the series over 1,200m is going to suit him down to the ground.'
After defeats domestically and then internationally at 1,200m, Sacred Kingdom was out to climb back on his throne yesterday and did that, to the relief of trainer Ricky Yiu Poon-fai.
'I'm more than happy to see him win again. He's a seven-year-old and really he is a race to race proposition now,' Yiu said. 'He will go to the Chairman's Sprint Prize over 1,200m next time but I just don't know about the third leg of the series at 1,400m - we tried him in that race when he was a younger horse and Good Ba Ba beat him. I don't know if we'd been keen to go 1,400m again with him now.'
Missing the third and final leg of the Speed series, the Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup at 1,400m, would limit the races still available to Sacred Kingdom for the rest of this season to just two, but Yiu was not ruling out seeking a shorter target, even if that meant having to go overseas.
'The overseas option is always there still - Singapore, Dubai, even Japan - but I will see how he goes in the 1,200m, then maybe have to talk to the owner,' Yiu said.
Olivier Doleuze on Dim Sum looked to gather up some hope of an upset victory in the final 100m as he redoubled his efforts on the John Moore-trained speedster.
'I didn't think that I could get to Sacred Kingdom but I could see that I could beat Sweet Sanette for second, so I pushed that extra bit,' he said. 'Dim Sum has a poor record in the straight before but this is the first time he led early and maybe that suited him better. They asked me to ride him second or third but when he jumped so well I thought it would not help to restrain him. Ultra Fantasy took me on and went past us, but he went very early and I let him go and my horse fought well.'
Dim Sum's stablemate One World was the best backed runner to beat the odds-on favourite Sacred Kingdom, but Darren Beadman said he just wasn't suited by the straight course.
'It isn't really his thing, he likes to have bend to kick off. I thought I'd get a tow into the race off Sacred Kingdom, but he just left me standing,' Beadman said.
Nearly there
The triumph, his seventh Group One, puts Sacred Kingdom just one victory behind the great Silent Witness on a total of (wins): 17
