Lucky Nine will try to carve out a slice of history at Sha Tin this Sunday (15 February). Hong Kong’s Champion Sprinter is taking aim at a third victory in the HKG1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize, the second leg of the Hong Kong Speed Series.
Caspar Fownes’s resolute star became the eighth horse to claim a pair of wins in the 1200m contest when he fought his way to a neck success 12 months ago. If he is to become the first to claim a hat-trick in the HK$6.6 million feature since the race attained HKG1 status in 1992, the veteran of many a top-flight skirmish will have to banish the spectre of a last start flop and see off a couple of emerging pretenders to his crown.
So far, this season has not gone to plan for Lucky Nine. An expected first-up run in the G1 Sprinters Stakes in Japan was aborted; ill-luck planted a wall of horses to bar his path at the climax of November’s G2 Jockey Club Sprint; and a rare dismal performance in the following month’s G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Sprint left connections and fans scratching their heads.
Jockey Brett Prebble has been in the saddle for 31 of the Dubawi gelding’s 40 starts since the Irish import arrived in Hong Kong. That partnership has taken in trips to Dubai, Japan, Australia and Singapore: it includes international calibre G1 successes in the 2011 Hong Kong Sprint and a brace of wins in the KrisFlyer International Sprint (2013 & 2014).
“He looks fantastic at the moment,” said Prebble. “People might say he’s older and question whether he might be finished: I don’t believe so. The horse is healthy and he’s only just eight.
“He always performs and if he does get beaten there is usually a reason. He put in a below-par performance last start but he’s come out of that fine; he didn’t have any internal problems, nothing’s shown up, so you just have to put it down as a ‘forget about’ run. That wasn’t him. His lead-up to the international (Jockey Club Sprint), he should have won. He had the Group 1 penalty and if he’d got out he would have won.”
Peniaphobia came out on top in the Jockey Club Sprint and will re-oppose on Sunday. As will Aerovelocity, who perhaps had the unluckiest run of all that day but bounced back to hold-off Peniaphobia and win the G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Sprint in December. On paper, those two represent the biggest known threat to Lucky Nine’s treble bid. More of an unknown threat appears to be the crack miler Gold-Fun, stepping down to 1200m for the first time in his career.
The 12-runner contest promises to be a fascinating affair. Prebble is looking forward to it, and, while he acknowledges there might be some doubt as to whether Lucky Nine’s fire still burns as brightly as it did, he has seen nothing to indicate that it does not.
“His trial last week looked super,” he said. “You can’t fault the way the horse looks, I saw him walk past me yesterday and he looked great. He has been a solid horse for so many years, he has been so consistent and it is hard to keep a horse up for that long. Caspar’s done an amazing job with him, especially with the issues he has.
“Granted, he is getting older and he’ll have to be on top of his game to beat them but Caspar’s put a tongue tie on him - you never know, sometimes with these older horses, when you tweak a little bit of gear that can just help. If he’s on his ‘A’ game he beats them.”
The only horse so far to have won the Chairman’s Sprint Prize on three occasions is Quicken Away. The grey won the contest when it was an open class contest in 1989, 1990 and 1991.
Zac Purton is pleased with his mount, the Paul O’Sullivan-trained Aerovelocity, heading into Sunday’s contest.
“Paul’s very happy with him,” said Purton. “He had a trial here 10 days ago and he did everything right in that. He’s eaten up and done everything well since. We’re really happy with how he’s going and he has a reasonable gate so he can put himself there. He doesn’t have to lead; we can always take a sit. He’s very honest, he gives everything and I’m sure that will be the case again.”
The Chairman’s Sprint Prize is Race 7 at Sha Tin on Sunday, with an off time of 4pm. The 10-race card starts with the first race at 1pm and also features the HKG1 Hong Kong Classic Cup (1800m), the second leg of the Hong Kong Four-Year-Old Series, at 5.10pm.
