Majestic Conqueror looks a cracking good bet to get punters off on a winning note in the opening event at tonight's Happy Valley meeting. Betting at the troubled city venue should almost certainly revolve around horses that finish strongly and late and can thus grab the running out wide at tonight's meeting. The track bias to 'swoopers' was enormous on Saturday night, especially after Kowloon Pride had won the fourth event. Racing then was on the 'C' Course and tonight the rail is out a further three metres. This means that much of the ground on the inside was raced on during Saturday night's meeting as some jockeys did not realise there was a profound bias in operation and still came down the inside. Tonight a similar bias is likely to operate and, arguably, it could even be more profound with the fence slower than out wide from the word go.
By halfway through the meeting, all the riders could be coming down the grandstand rail which will make for some spectacular finishes.
Majestic Conqueror has tended to get back in his races and then run on very strongly to the line. These races have all been at trips shorter than the staying distance for which he is bred and the best of them came when he ran on very strongly to finish two lengths fifth to Multi-Star in a competitive Class Four mile contest at Sha Tin which was also run in a good time. This event has thrown up a number of future winners including the third, Charity First, the seventh Winningcombination and the 10th, Highland Dancer.
A measure of the strength of this race as a form event is that Jade Lake (second), Senator (sixth) and Swifty-Swifty (ninth) have all run highly creditable placings since, too. Majestic Conqueror then met with a slight training setback and had to be withdrawn from an 1,800-metre contest at Sha Tin which looked an ideal winning opportunity.
He missed work due to that setback and trainer Alex Wong Yu-on patiently ran him first-up from that brief spell in a 1,400-metre event with the seven-pound claimer Win Chung on board. Again Majestic Conqueror was noted keeping on very strongly indeed to run seventh of 14 to Masterkova in a much more competitive Class Four field than he tackles tonight.
The outing will have done him the world of good, multiple champion jockey Basil Marcus now takes over and the move to 1,800 metres puts Majestic Conqueror over the kind of trip for which he is bred.