Trainer Lor, who threatens to challenge the dominance of the old guard in just his second season, knows the value of winning on the bigger stages as well as chalking up the routine winners which he’s certainly managed to do thus far.
“You need the horses to win at the better level but that’s what I want to be able to do,” said Lor who will have the chance to surpass today’s triumph when he saddles up Mr Stunning and Glorious Forever in the LONGINES Hong Kong International Races on 9 December.
In the meantime, Lor is hopeful that Simply Brilliant can continue to improve and make his mark at Group level. “We probably have to look at the better races now. He’ll go up in the ratings after today but I’d thought, early in the season, he’d made some improvement and hopefully there’s a little more there. How much, I don’t know but we will see,” Lor said.
The four-year-old, by Frankel, has had just 15 starts in the UK and Hong Kong combined and this win came in a race which most observers assessed as having great depth. Who’s to say he might not eventually graduate to international competition given that the one-two in last year’s Chevalier Cup – Fifty Fifty and Exultant – will compete in this year’s HKIR.
Rise High, Rattan, Dinozzo and Northern Superstar, the last named entered for the LONGINES Hong Kong Cup, finished third to sixth respectively and each performed satisfactorily given that the pattern of racing looked to favour those on speed until late in the card.
Trainer Tony Millard was pleased with the performance of the dual South African Group 1 winner Northern Superstar, who hadn’t raced since December 2017.
“It was a very good run. He finished off very strongly just with hands and heels. He was three wide and really it was an amazing run for his first of the season and after a year off. We’ll go for the big race (Hong Kong Cup) and we’ll see. Two-week is not ideal but we’ll do our best. Whatever happens, he is going to have a say in what happens for the rest of the season,” Millard said.
More than wishful thinking for Gibson
Wishful Thinker, the only horse to have beaten nominal LONGINES Hong Kong Sprint favourite Hot King Prawn, continued his winning run and that of trainer Richard Gibson in today’s Chevalier Construction Handicap (1000m) at Sha Tin.
The lightly raced and highly promising five-year-old, who inflicted Hot King Prawn’s sole defeat back in April, made it back to back wins in impressive fashion – especially given that he was back to the 1000m straight course after swooping late, around the circle, to win over 1200m at Happy Valley on 7 November.
It was a win which delighted his trainer. “To win from that draw (one) under these conditions was an exceptional effort and Alexis (Badel), who gave him a dream ride, said he won with something in hand. The horse is in magnificent condition, he was the clear pick of the paddock,” Gibson said.
“Yes, I think so,” was Gibson’s response when asked if he expected the horse to keep improving. “It takes a very good horse to do what he did today and we’ll push on with him. He is, after all, the only horse to have beaten Hot King Prawn.”
Gibson said that 1200m was ‘probably’ Wishful Thinker’s best distance but that his immediate target was likely to be again at 1000m in the G3 Bauhinia Sprint Trophy on 6 January.
Gibson, earlier this month, notched up his 200th winner in Hong Kong but missed that 10 November meeting as he was in Europe to celebrate his father’s 80th birthday. However, today, he said such training milestones were not significant to him.” I never look back. Don’t have a (winning) photo in the house. I just hope the next 200 come faster,” he said.
