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Murray Bell

Defending Sprint champ is a donkey over 1,200m and should have missed cut

The Jockey Club's selection committee was forced to draw on the proverbial 'Wisdom of Solomon' to prune the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint field down to 14 invitees last week. But the question must be asked: would King Solomon seriously have invited Natural Blitz?

The committee found itself unable to justify the exclusion of Natural Blitz, not only because he is the reigning Hong Kong Sprint winner but also because he had filled the minor placing behind Able Prince in the Hong Kong Sprint Trial on November 19, when carrying the five-pound penalty.

The Sprint Trial is staged principally to give the up-and-coming sprinters a chance to show their ability.

In theory, filling a placing in the Trial should secure you a berth in the 'grand final' on international day three weeks later.

The only difference is that the 2005 Hong Kong Sprint was conducted over the straight 1,000 metres course, as was the Sprint Trial.

At this course and distance, Natural Blitz also ran second to Scintillation in the Group One Bauhinia Sprint Trophy earlier this year, as well as having filled a minor placing behind Silent Witness in the Hong Kong Sprint two years ago.

Yes, that reads well. But the new-look Hong Kong Sprint of 2006 is not a straight 1,000m contest, but rather 1,200 metres around a corner.

And in that regard, Natural Blitz's form is simply not competitive.

Natural Blitz has repeatedly failed when stretched to 1,200m. Since moving from Macau at the back end of 2004, Natural Blitz has raced six times at 1,200m.

His best placing was sixth, and his beaten margins have varied from 43/4 lengths to 15 lengths, at an average of 7.1 lengths.

Let's look at the form from the Group Three HSBC Premier Bowl, over the same course and distance as the Sprint championship on December 10 - the Sha Tin 1,200m circuit.

In this race, Absolute Champion established a course record of 1:08.1 in beating Hong Kong Sprint contender Sunny Sing.

Exciting four-year-old All's Well was a courageous third, 11/4 lengths away, while progressive Armada was fourth - his only defeat in an  eight-start career.

Down Town, impressive winner of his previous two starts, finished sixth, beaten 31/4 lengths, carrying the same weight as Absolute Champion (111 pounds), while Natural Blitz ran 13th, 15 lengths from the winner, under 124 pounds.

Trainers David Hall (Absolute Champion) and Danny Shum Chap-shing (All's Well) decided not to run their charges in the Sprint Trial, figuring it would not suit their horses and potentially could harm their hopes in their target race. So they stayed at home.

But Down Town and Natural Blitz ventured forth and their placings behind Able Prince won them selection ahead of the two who stayed in their boxes.

The punters of Hong Kong won't have any doubt about what to do with Natural Blitz in the Hong Kong Sprint.

To give you a clue, he was 70-1 when 13th in the Bowl, a handicap, with 124 pounds and must now rise to 127 under set-weight conditions against tougher opposition.

He'll be a nice 150-1 chance on the big day and will merely be getting in the way as he weakens in the final 200m under the championship pressure that a horse like Takeover Target will exert.

Meanwhile, two of Hong Kong's best chances will be missing.

While the club could not find the grounds on which to exclude him, what would have been wrong with invoking the Derby distance argument, used so often in March each year for the borderline classic contenders?

We often see horses with lower ratings pushed into the field at the expense of higher-rated contenders on the grounds that the former are given little chance of managing the Derby distance of 2,000m.

If that argument is accepted as legitimate - and it always has been in the past in a Derby context - why would it not be equally valid for a horse whose ability to run a strong 1,200m in Hong Kong has been repeatedly proved to be non-existent?



Club backs a loser by picking Blitz