Able Friend frightens off foreign raiders
The Champions Mile will be a fully local affair for the first time in 11 years
The colossal shadow of the world's joint top-rated racehorse, Able Friend, has left the Jockey Club unable to attract a foreign runner to the HK$14 million Champions Mile next month for the first time since it became an international event.
The Group One Champions Mile was lifted from a domestic event to an international in 2005, the occasion etched indelibly in history as the first defeat for Silent Witness, and the race attracted three foreign runners even then.
We came up empty this year, partly because there is not much available and partly because Able Friend resides in Hong Kong
A total of 28 foreign competitors have turned up for the 10 runnings, albeit just one, Meiner Segal, for the 2008 race, when Good Ba Ba was at his peak.
When Mike de Kock-trained Variety Club downed Able Friend in a stunning success last year to become the first foreign-trained winner of the race, that might have been thought the signal to make the event more attractive and the Jockey Club added an extra HK$2 million sweetener to the prize money this year as well.
But the privilege of having the world's champion miler has ensured that connections of foreign milers want to avoid him.
"We came up empty this year, partly because there is not much available and partly because Able Friend resides in Hong Kong," said executive director of racing, Bill Nader. "Normally we hope to attract overseas runners coming out of Dubai but once we failed to get Solow, there wasn't much behind him.
"We also lost our best chance with Japan when two top prospects, particularly Real Impact, opted for a two-race campaign in Australia. Fortunately, we still have an intriguing match-up featuring the world number one and our Derby winner."
With the majority of the eight-horse invited field made up of the same horses which have been chasing Able Friend home in his Group wins all season, John Size-trained Derby winner Luger is the one to provide a fresh encounter in the Champions Mile.
Size said that, although Luger ran out the 2,000m well against his age group peers despite a tough trip through the Derby, he was wary of taking on open-age horses over the distance at this stage of Luger's career and preferred to have him at a distance over which he knew the gelding would be strong at the finish.
Only one Derby winner, Collection in 2009, has elected to drop back to the 1,600m of the Champions Mile in preference to taking on the open Group One horses over 2,000m in the QE II Cup. Collection started favourite and finished fifth behind Size-trained Sight Winner.
"Not having an overseas runner does not lessen the quality of the race," Nader added. "Able Friend is a horse of immense aptitude and his appeal is such that he is capturing the imaginations of a global audience."
