Lucky Quality hobbled by the handicappers

The Jockey Club handicapping department has given the Dubai Racing Club no leverage whatsoever by sending out a list of the international ratings of the top Hong Kong horses on Monday, showing Lucky Quality to own an international rating of 100, even if it was later updated to read 107.

While Lucky Quality has been one of the finds of the season, especially when racing on the dirt, his trainer, Me Tsui Yu-sak, and owner David Wu Hin-ting are now out of local options for the explosive son of Elusive Quality.

So they are looking towards a run in the Group One Golden Shaheen (1,200 metres) in Dubai and, theoretically at least, the gelding requires an international rating of 110 to secure an invitation.

On Monday morning, senior handicapper Nigel Gray announced Lucky Quality's domestic rating had risen to 114 in the wake of his victory in Class One on Sunday, where he shouldered the maximum weight of 133 pounds and defeated in-form Solar Mighty while conceding to him an amazing 30 pounds (the full 20 pounds of handicap bandwidth, plus a 10-pound allowance for apprentice Keith Yeung Ming-lun).

Late yesterday we learned that the improbable international rating of 100 rating did not take Sunday's win into account, and that senior handicapper Nigel Gray had lifted him to 107, some seven pounds in lag of his domestic rating. But it might not be enough to secure an all-expenses-paid invitation to compete on Dubai's big night at Group One level.

Anyone looking for precedent can cast their mind back to 2004 when Tony Cruz was campaigning a fast, front-running Danehill sprinter called Multidandy.