Go Baby Go takes off like a good thing, but Whyte cautions patience
Go Baby Go did just that in landing his debut start up the Sha Tin straight course in a canter, but champion jockey Douglas Whyte has warned the four-year-old will need some patient handling if he is to realise his potential.
Bouncing quickly from a preferred wide draw, Go Baby Go was always in the vanguard and shot away in the final 150m to post a 31/2 lengths margin as the first leg of a double for Dennis Yip Chor-hong (pictured), who won again 30 minutes later with Real Generous (Mark du Plessis).
'He's a lovely horse but he does get quite hot and can do a few things wrong,' Whyte said of Go Baby Go 'He was probably fit enough to run a while ago but we gave him a bit more time and one more trial just to take him another step in his education before he came to the races. He is quite fragile mentally at this stage, so Dennis will need to bide his time if he doesn't want to risk him going the wrong way, but as he showed today he has great speed.'
One thing Go Baby Go already has on his sire, the little-known Medal Of Honor, is that he has won a race. A son of Danehill, Medal Of Honor went to stud utterly undistinguished in any way after being unplaced in five starts in Western Australia.
Du Plessis claimed what was owed him by Real Generous in the following event for Yip (pictured) running out a decent winner at his first attempt at 1,600m.
The gelding's habit of laying in cost Du Plessis a careless-riding suspension in October, but the same habit may have helped him to victory yesterday as he closed the door on Dispatcher (Douglas Whyte) when that horse was trying to ease out from inside Real Generous at the 200m.
'It might have looked like I was holding Douglas in there, but Real Generous just lays in himself,' Du Plessis said. 'Though, in truth, Dispatcher had room to come and edge my horse out of the way if he was going well enough but he wasn't.
'My bloke was travelling too strongly. I've finally ridden a winner for Dennis - I got one home for him but lost it on protest when I first came to Hong Kong and it has taken till now to get another one.
'The owners have been sticking solid to me, so I'm really happy to have won one for them and I think there's another one there. He enjoyed the step to 1,600m and he feels like 1,800m won't bother him either.'
3 1/2
The number of lengths the Dennis Yip-trained Go Baby Go won by on his debut up the Sha Tin straight
