Next month's Longines Hong Kong International Races will be bristling with stars - but the Jockey Club will be privately disappointed with how many of the names announced on Wednesday are local heroes despite an HK$11 million boost to stake money.
In July, the club boosted the prize money for its December 14 showpiece to HK$83 million across the four events.
But only three of the 10 runners carrying an international rating of 120 or more will come from overseas, headed by Andre Fabre's Vase runner Flintshire, runner-up in both of the world's premier 2,400m events in recent weeks, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris and the Breeders' Cup Turf in the United States.
Of 52 runners, 25 are trained overseas, with 22 international Group One winners. Japan will supply 10, Britain seven and the French are down to just two.
The HK$25 million Hong Kong Cup over 2,000m will be the richest race ever contested here and is expected to be dominated by locals such as Military Attack and Designs On Rome, but the visitors are topped by evergreen French star Cirrus des Aigles. A win at Sha Tin is about the only thing missing from the eight-year-old's career.
At HK$23 million, the Hong Kong Mile is the richest race on turf at that distance in the world and has seen the return of the Japanese milers who were a staple of the event a decade ago.
No foreign horse has won the Mile since Japan's Hat Trick in 2005, and four runners will be looking to claim it for Tokyo, led by Sunday's Mile Championship second, Fiero, but in their path are the past two winners, Glorious Days and Ambitious Dragon, and likely favourite Able Friend.
Champion Japanese sprinter Lord Kanaloa went off to stud after his 2013 win gave him two Hong Kong Sprints and there is no headline horse of his ilk this time, although Caspar Fownes-trained Lucky Nine will be making a fifth run at the world's richest turf sprint, now worth HK$18.5 million and which he won in 2011.
The runner-up to Lord Kanaloa last year, Ireland's Sole Power, returns, Ireland's Gordon Lord Byron switches back to the short trip after two excellent efforts in the Mile on previous visits, while ultra-consistent Group One performer Buffering sees a welcome return of short-course horses from Australia.
The HK$16.5 million Vase proved the shock of the meeting last year when a brilliant Zac Purton ride saw Dominant win the 2,400m race for Hong Kong - the first local in 15 years - but this year the seven Hong Kong-trained stayers will have their hands full with the highest-rated runner at the meeting in Flintshire.
"The Longines Hong Kong International Races are one of the most lucrative and prestigious days in the horse-racing calendar, and, once again, the great talents that comprise the selections for our four Group One races illustrate that point," said Bill Nader, the Jockey Club's executive director of racing. "We have a slew of elite-level horses coming to Sha Tin for world racing's great end-of-year occasion, making up a total of 22 individual winners of 43 Group One races."
The club has left open the possibility of adding horses that run in Sunday's Japan Cup to either the Cup or the Vase.
