“Get in there!” With a whoop of joy and a leap into the air which would have done Nureyev proud, Aidan O’Brien’s travelling head lad, Pat Keating, made no attempt to hide his feelings.
Nor should he have. Highland Reel had just passed the Sha Tin post to win the Hong Kong Vase, first of the four races which make the Longines-sponsored day of international racing such a magnet for top-class racehorses from around the world.
And this really was something for Keating to shout about for Highland Reel was his boss’s first winner in Hong Kong, despite the efforts over the years of some illustrious entrants.
Every racing fan should also celebrate yet another exquisite display of jockeyship from Ryan Moore. He took the field along at a less than furious pace in the early stages, eased back into the company of his rivals, and then, when halfway up the home straight when the race was boiling into a gripping showdown between Highland Reel and Flintshire, found enough energy in his horse to see off the dogged rival.
The winning distance was one-and-a-half lengths, and the manner in which the three-year-old Highland Reel got the better of his battle-hardened opponent – winner of the race last year – suggests the career prospects as a four-year-old for this latest Ballydoyle star are encouraging.
O’Brien was not at Sha Tin, and in the trainer’s absence the notoriously taciturn Moore found himself in the media spotlight. He almost looked as if he was enjoying the experience, emphasising that Highland Reel “did it very easily” and adding: “He’s turned into a very good horse. When Flintshire came by me I thought he was in trouble, but he dug in.”
While Moore was speaking, a short distance away Corine Barande-Barbe was coming to terms with the fact that Cirrus des Aigles, the hugely popular gelding to whom she is clearly devoted and who has put her on the racing map, had finished only 10th.
When asked the inevitable question about retirement of a horse who will be 10 years old in a fortnight and has been racing at the highest level for many of them, she scarcely had time to conduct her answer before she was wiping away tears, and gratefully receiving big hugs from a woman photographer as she struggled to compose herself. On one of the great days of international Flat racing, there is still a place for simple emotion.
Of the other European challengers for the Vase, Dariyan and Ming Dynasty – both French-trained, like Flintshire – produced fine efforts to run third and fourth respectively, but the Sir Michael Stoute-trained Cannock Chase finished 11th.
In all, seven nations took on the Hong Kong team: Australia, USA, Germany, France, Ireland, Great Britain and Japan – plus, stretching a point, an eighth in the unlikely shape of Mongolia. The US-based trainer Enebish Ganbat, a native of that country, had brought his colt Mongolian Saturday, who won the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint a few weeks ago, to run in the Hong Kong Sprint. This adventurous attitude saw the gelding finish a highly respectable fifth behind the leading local sprinter Peniaphobia, ridden by Hong Kong’s current riding sensation João Moreira.
The Irish-trained Sole Power, whose last-gasp efforts in the big sprints have won him legions of fans in Britain and Ireland, was never in the mix and finished 11th. “He is simply not the same horse running round bends as he is when running straight,” said the trainer Eddie Lynam, and all being well Sole Power will return in Dubai in spring, where he won the Al Quoz Sprint in March.
Next up came the Hong Kong Mile, which pitted Moreira and Able Friend – a horse idolised by locals and the highest-rated in Hong Kong history – against the brilliant Japanese-trained miler Maurice, who had the advantage of having Moore in the saddle.
To the great alarm of the 85,000 crowd packing the towering stands, Able Friend was never able to take control of the race and could finish only third behind Maurice – “A top-class miler”, in the estimation of his rider – and Giant Treasure.
Of the European challenge, Esoterique ran well to be fourth, but both Toormore and Mondialiste finished out with the proverbial washing.
Moore then came close to a remarkable treble when Nuovo Record finished runner-up to another Japanese challenger, A Shin Hikari, in the day’s most valuable race, the Hong Kong Cup. Ridden by Yutaka Take, an idol in Japan, A Shin Hikari benefited from his rider’s fabled judgment of pace to dominate from the front and hold off all challengers. The Dermot Weld-trained Free Eagle finished last.
But Sha Tin belonged to one man, and in this city of jaw-dropping sights, the indelible image from the 2015 Hong Kong International Races is of the usually po-faced Moore as he ran from the weighing room after winning the Mile on Maurice – grinning from ear to ear, as well he might.
