Beauty Generation, the highest rated runner in Sunday’s HK$18 million G1 Champions Mile, will join an elite group if he were to add this race to his G1 Hong Kong Mile win last December.
Only three horses, generally accepted as champion performers of their time, have completed the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile and Champions Mile double in the same season – Maurice (2015-16), Able Friend (2014-15) and Good Ba Ba (2007-08). Able One also won both races but not in the same racing year.
Another four horses, in the past 10 years, have been beaten less than a length and a half in the second leg of this auspicious double – Sunday contender Beauty Only last year along with Able One (2012), Beauty Flash (2013) and Good Ba Ba (2009).
Going close is one thing but completing the task is another and while the Patrick Kwok-owned Beauty Generation does have to turn around a G2 Chairman’s Trophy defeat – behind Beauty Only – at his most recent run, he has in his corner the major race specialists, trainer John Moore and jockey Zac Purton.
Beauty Generation wins the 2017 Hong Kong Mile.
Zac Purton is ecstatic after winning the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup.
Moore who, of course, also trained Able Friend and Able One, has won the Champions Mile no fewer than six times and he believes that Beauty Generation is “fresh and well” for Sunday assignment despite a tough run in the G2 Chairman’s Trophy, when beaten just a length and a quarter at his third run since December’s triumph.
“I’ve made a concerted effort to freshen him right up since his last run,” he said. “I’d just forget the run the other day. The Chairman’s Trophy wasn’t run to suit and we now have Zac Purton back on board again. Looking at the speed map, he’ll probably get his own way in front, which will give him a better chance of winning.
“Going into this race, we’ve taken him along quietly. No trial Friday. He’s a very fit horse who’s been up for a long time. In Australia, he’d have had a spell by now with a month in the paddock at Scone but he’s freshened up really well.
“He’s kicking his brands off at present,” Moore added. “He’ll have a light workout on Thursday with Zac (Purton) aboard and I’m sure he’s going to run a big race.”
Purton, who seeks a first Champions Mile win, is reassured by Moore’s assessment of the five-year-old’s well-being and pleased to be reunited with Beauty Generation after he was committed to ride his HK$24 million G1 Audemars Piguet mount Time Warp in the Chairman’s Trophy.
“I thought his last run was fantastic under the circumstances,” Purton said. “He did have a tough run with the five-pound penalty and you’d hope it didn’t take too much out of him but obviously John thinks he’s in good order.
“I’d expect him to run a very good race. He’s run very well all season and been one of the most consistent horses here,” added Purton ,who rode Beauty Generation in each of his first seven runs in Hong Kong and in his recent G1 Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup (1400m) win.
Five of the past 10 Champions Mile winners have come via a last start performance in the Chairman’s Trophy and three failed to win that obvious lead-up over the course and distance.
