SUGARLOAF looked a slice or two above the average recruit when blitzing his rivals in yesterday's sixth event at Sha Tin to complete a magnificent championship-clinching treble for local riding idol Tony Cruz and trainer John Moore. The lightly-raced private purchase griffin, who missed the whole of his first season due to niggling training problems, was always going like a winner before strolling clear from the top of the straight to win eased down by a staggering 71/4 lengths in this Class Three 1,400-metre contest. Horses just don't win by those margins racing Hong Kong-style.
Sugarloaf did and he's going to get better and better. 'He's improving with each run and won like a Class Two horse today,' said Cruz. 'I would expect that he would be able to stay up to 1,800 metres in the future but before we get too carried away, he didn't beat a very strong field.' Sugarloaf was not the soundest of horses early on, which probably explains why Moore decided against running him last season.
But the son of the multiple winner, Lord Ballina, is still only three-years-old and could well mature into a Class One performer next season. He still has a few mental kinks, but Moore has been working on those, too. He lost a race at a Sha Tin night meeting when hanging off the track, making it impossible for Steven King to ride any kind of race on him. But yesterday he was raced like a seasoned campaigner - until he'd won. 'He hung out quite badly as I was pulling him up - that's why I had to win by so far. I didn't want to cause any interference past the post,' laughed Cruz.
Sugarloaf is certainly bred to progress all the way to Class One as Lord Ballina won two Group One events and has produced some useful types such as the leading sprinter, Lord Tridan. On the dam's side, Sugarloaf is out of Bureaucracy whom Neville Begg trained to win in Group One company and seven times in all from 1,200 to 2,400 metres. Each race has seen Sugarloaf develop physically and yesterday he cut a most impressive, athletic figure in the paddock. Cruz initiated his treble, and a double for Brian Kan Ping-chee, when producing Love Of Freedom with a precision-timed run to take the opening Class Six event.
He was then on the mark with Moore's Super Falcon in the fourth, a Class Four dash down the straight 1,000-metre chute. Super Falcon won readily from Horse Delight with Make My Day finishing strongly to take third from Super Falcon's stablemate, Big Apple, who ran well for a long way down the centre of the track. Sugarloaf then went out and ran them ragged in the sixth. He was Cruz's 58th winner of the season and established a break of nine over defending champion Basil Marcus. The South African admitted: 'It really does look tough for me now. But you know me, if I can't be first I want to be second.
'I won't like losing the title but I will be able to look back on the season and say that I did my job properly and gave it my best shot. That's important to me.' The opening leg of Moore's treble came from his improving griffin Win Theatre who skipped clear of Intrepid Lad in the second race. Moore now leads Patrick Biancone by eight and has a fifth championship in the bag.
