The perception of Hong Kong as a growing force in international racing has been further strengthened in the wake of the brave win by Come See You in Friday night's S$1 million Singapore Classic.
The fact that Come See You had been able to come off a Class One win at Happy Valley, via an unplaced run in the Centenary Cup (Group Three) at Sha Tin to win the Singapore domestic Group One event under weight-for-age conditions has provided abundant reflected glory to other open company performers in Hong Kong.
While Ivan Allan remains the only Hong Kong trainer to win a feature race abroad, having also won the Group One Yasuda Kinen (1,600m) in Tokyo with Fairy King Prawn almost three years ago, his success is fuelling the fires of ambition in many of his rivals.
David Hayes, having guided Helene Vitality to take second placing in last year's US$2 million Dubai Duty Free, has a personal ambition to train a Melbourne Cup winner from a Hong Kong base. And John Moore has been anything but discouraged after his promising but frustrating trip to Melbourne last August with Dehere's brilliant son Able Choice. In fact, Moore can't wait to do it all again.
Allan was laid low with a sudden illness in Singapore yesterday and was by no means certain to be fit enough to return to Hong Kong for today's Sha Tin fixture. 'But last night's win was very satisfying for all concerned,' Allan said. 'I'm glad it worked out so well and being back in Singapore, my old home town, made it even more special.'
Allan was humble in victory, deflecting most of the credit to a brilliant ride from Weichong Marwing and to the courage of Come See You. Those two big wins, together with his Japan Cup second placing with Indigenous, have shown Allan to be a master of successful travelling his horses.
Undoubtedly his background, training on the old Singapore-Malaysia circuit was a fertile grounding for the new era of global travel. In those days, Allan was based at the Bikit Timah course in Singapore but for six weeks out of eight, racing was held in the Malaysian venues of Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Penang, with the latter track being a 12-hour trip by horse float. If a horse couldn't travel, 75 per cent of its potential evaporated.
