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Maurice impresses Moreira

28/04/2016

Maurice is the main attraction at Sha Tin this week. Chautauqua pushes him close in the super star stakes, Buffering will always have his admirers, Mongolian Saturday’s quirkiness appeals and Aerovelocity has his unwavering fan base, but Maurice is the bill-topper.

Japan’s Horse of the Year first set foot at Sha Tin almost five months ago in preparation for a showdown with Hong Kong’s very own howitzer horse, Able Friend. Noriyuki Hori’s champ arrived off five undefeated starts that year, including the G1 Yasuda Kinen and G1 Mile Championship. He made it six in the G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile – slipstreaming Able Friend after the big chestnut’s after-burners had engaged and passing him with a relentless drive to the post.

Ryan Moore was in the plate that day. On Sunday Joao Moreira, vanquished atop Able Friend in December, will climb aboard. This morning (Thursday, 28 April) the Brazilian ace, Hong Kong’s record-breaking Champion Jockey, sat astride the powerful bay for the first time. He was impressed.

“He’s a beautiful horse, he moves like a real champion and the feel that he gave me from the top is that he is a champion,” said Moreira. “He hasn’t achieved what he has by luck he’s done it because he’s got ability and because he’s got everything that a horse needs to be doing what he’s done. Hopefully we can get the best out of him at the weekend, and if we do, he’s the one to beat.”

Back in December Maurice was kept to his slower paces in the lead-up until late in the week when Moore was legged up for a piece of “fast” work. Eager watchers were left underwhelmed at the pace of that steady breeze down the home straight. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

This time the routine has been similar: slow, steady work in Hong Kong’s warm late April humidity, building to this morning’s fast work. But whereas December found Maurice at the end of a long prep, May finds him at the cusp of a new campaign, first-up for the season off a spell. This morning’s work was stiffer, but not too much so – Maurice was already a fit horse when he touched down at Chek Lap Kok airport early last Sunday morning.  

“The gallop today wasn’t to get him fit, he’s already fit, it was more that they wanted to give me a feel of the horse, to try to understand him a bit, which was great,” said Moreira.  “I went for one lap – I cantered half and trotted another 200 metres – then I started off on another canter to gallop him another half a mile. The first half of it I went half pace and then finished off a bit stronger.”

Maurice looked powerful at the gallop, a horse primed for the fray. The five-year-old was clocked at 54.0s (30.6, 23.4) for the final 800m.

Japan has never won the Champions Mile. In his attempt to become the first, Maurice will break from gate six in Sunday’s HK$14 million contest.

“Hopefully he can put it all together on race day and go for it,” said Moreira. “The gate is not too bad – it’s good in my opinion. He’s going to find it much easier to find a position with cover from there than he had to do in December when he won from gate 11. Fingers crossed, we get on the right track.”

Maurice gallops on turf this morning with Joao Moreira on board.
Photo 1:
Maurice gallops on turf this morning with Joao Moreira on board.

 

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