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Everest outsider Joyful Fortune (right) records his last Hong Kong win before his return to Australia. Photo: Kenneth Chan

Tony Cruz on Everest outsider and ex-Hong Kong hype horse Joyful Fortune: ‘time healed him’

  • Fifteen months on from his Sha Tin seventh in Class Three grade, the once-retired sprinter lines up in the world’s richest turf race

Former Hong Kong hype horse Joyful Fortune is the lowest rated runner in the sixth edition of the world’s richest turf race, The Everest (1,200m), but his former trainer Tony Cruz believes “time healed him” and expects the comeback galloper will “perform well” in the A$15 million event at Randwick on Saturday.

Both of Joyful Fortune’s Sha Tin wins – his first on debut for David Hall before two odds-on flops, and his second three starts into his equally up-and-down time in the Cruz stable – smashed the clock and prompted comparisons with star sprinters.

But Joyful Fortune, who set what was then a Sha Tin 1,000m class record time of 55.07 seconds when he scorched the straight on his July 2020 bow, never realised his full potential in Hong Kong, his soundness issues leading to the Jockey Club’s veterinary surgeons recommending his retirement.

“He came to me from David Hall with a record of knee injuries,” said two-time champion trainer Cruz of Joyful Fortune, whose official Australian rating of 77 is 46 points lower than that his fellow son of Nicconi, nine-time Group One winner and defending Everest champion Nature Strip.

“He won a race with me, and he was lame the next day. There was a consistency of lameness. The Jockey Club’s vets say ‘this horse needs to retire’. When they say these things to me, what do you say back?”

Joyful Fortune underwent knee surgery on both of his front legs in Hong Kong before he relocated to his country of origin, Australia, in November 2021.

The plan was for Joyful Fortune to live out the rest of his years in a paddock, but his rehabilitation went so unexpectedly well his owner, Derek Tam Lap-tak, sent photographs to one of his long-standing friends, Sydney-based jockey-turned-trainer Mark Newnham.

The rest is history. Joyful Fortune beat last year’s Everest bronze medallist, Group One winner Eduardo, in his first Australian trial since his pre-export days in 2019 before, in scenes reminiscent of his scintillating Sha Tin success in 2020, he thrashed his first-up opponents on Flemington’s straight.

Cruz has tracked Joyful Fortune’s improbable journey from retirement paddock to The Everest – Aquis struck a deal with Tam for his horse to run in the main event of Sydney’s rich spring carnival – and believes he knows what has got him back on track.

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“Time is a cure for any health problems. The horse retired and time healed him,” said Cruz, before being coy in response to the question of whether Joyful Fortune could shock the world and dethrone Nature Strip, the world’s top-ranked sprinter.

“I don’t dare say much, you know. As long as the horse is healthy, if he’s back to really good health, I’m sure he’s going to perform well. The time when he first won was really fast. It shows how good he is. He’s all class.”

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