After Werther was scratched from the LONGINES Hong Kong Cup yesterday with a probable career-ending injury, Moore was keen to avoid drama for a second day in a row. What he saw was a healthy horse, but one that did, nonetheless, cock his head to one side and hang just a touch as he strode out down the home run.
“Let’s hope he goes straight on race day,” Purton said, alluding to the stark shift across the track’s width in last month’s astonishing course record-lowering G2 Jockey Club Mile.
“He went through his paces quite well; he always strides out well. He’s not out there to break any records; he’s just going through the motions. He’s where he needs to be, he’s done his work.”
A chink in Beauty’s armour?
Moore was satisfied – both with the work and that the bruising to his champ’s foot that accompanied his win almost three weeks ago is no longer an issue.
“Zac let him come wide on the corner and we know that when he does gallop, his style is to carry his head on the side when he starts to go under pressure a bit – so he does always get off a line that wee bit,” he said. “I’m not concerned about it, though.
“I think the horse is getting into a little bit of a habit – he has a tendency to get his head on the side on the right and tends to hang out that bit. He fanned on the corner, and it appeared he was hanging out that little bit this morning but we went through him with a fine-toothed comb and as far as we’re concerned he’s sound. He’s just holding his form – he’s jumping out of his skin.”
Beauty Generation walked soundly, moved with a relaxed rhythm, and is clearly hard fit. And yet the six-year-old did not emit the same heightened level of bold confidence from his primed frame as at the same juncture before his track record-smashing last start. Such things are relative, of course, and open to subjective interpretation, but perhaps the “hanging” is a sign of just the slightest of chinks in the gelding’s perceived invincibility.
Japan’s challengers will certainly be hoping that is the case.
