If at first you do not succeed, try again. That apparently is the thinking that motivates several of the international runners set to grace Sha Tin in two weeks after the entries to the Hong Kong International races were revealed yesterday.
Sole Power has tried three times to win the Hong Kong Sprint, without success, and heads a quartet of horses who have previously won at Meydan to be entered across the four Group 1 races.
The Al Quoz Sprint winner once again clashes with Hong Kong runner Peniaphobia, who he beat in Dubai’s premier turf sprint on World Cup night in March, and Rich Tapestry, last year’s Mahab Al Shimaal winner who was third in the Dubai Golden Shaheen.
Sole Power, who will return to Dubai in February in time for Super Saturday and a defence of his sprint crown on World Cup night, was ninth at Hong Kong last year, an impressive second to Lord Kanaloa in 2013 and ninth to Lucky Nine in 2011.
The 1,200-metre Hong Kong Sprint stretches Sole Power’s stamina – he has never won over the distance, but with $HK18.5m (Dh8.7m) on offer trainer Edward Lynam is all set to travel.
“We’d be silly not to take up the invitation,” Lynam said. “He needs a fast pace over five furlongs on fast ground, which is not what he will get in Hong Kong, but if you look at three bits of form this year it is fair to say he is almost at his best.
“His win in the Al Quoz Sprint was right up there, and he ran well over six furlongs behind Muhaarar in the July Cup.
“Although the Flying Five at the Curragh was on yielding ground and a Group 2, he ran well there to win. There is not a sprinter in Europe in the past few seasons that could hold a candle to Lord Kanaloa, so we’ve every right to be there.”
Sole Power will be ridden once again by Chris Hayes, who is making a favourable impression in the UAE this season while riding for Dhruba Selvaratnam.
Elsewhere across the card, French raider Cirrus Des Aigles will try to win for the first time in Hong Kong on what will be his seventh visit and the sixth time he has entered the gates after he was scratched at the 11th hour in 2012.
Helene Super Star is the only other horse entered to have won in Dubai and lines up in the Hong Kong Vase.
Now trained by leading Hong Kong conditioner Tony Cruz, the five-year-old son of American sire War Front won the 2013 UAE Derby when the horse was called Lines Of Battle and handled by Aidan O’Brien.
Overall, the 33 international raiders outnumber a home team of 23 Hong Kong horses, a fact not lost on William Nader, the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s director of racing.
“Here in Hong Kong we have a strong contingent of talented, international-calibre horses, notably the outstanding Able Friend,” he said. “But at this year’s HKIR, our home team will perhaps face its toughest test of recent times.”
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