\u201cIt was very impressive. He\u2019s got class and I was expecting to win this race. We still ran him a bit short of his best distance, next\u00a0time we\u2019re going to run him at 1800m or 2000m.<\/p>
\u201cThis horse has a bright future \u2013 he\u2019s got a lot of ability and quality. The Derby is the main goal, he is a Derby contender but I haven\u2019t planned how he will get there yet,\u201d Cruz said.<\/p>
Purton now has 35 wins for the season \u2013 20 more than closest pursuer Vincent Ho (15) \u2013 and was equally taken with Beautyverse.<\/p>
\u201cIt was an impressive effort, wasn\u2019t it? Horses sort of don\u2019t do what he did in that grade first time in Hong Kong unless they\u2019re pretty smart. That wasn\u2019t his racing pattern in Australia to race like that and Tony said to me earlier in the day that he expected the horse to lead,\u201d Purton said.<\/p>
\u201cI didn\u2019t think he would have the speed to do it and, to be honest, he didn\u2019t have the speed early but because we drew out wide and there was nowhere to get in, I just kept him rolling. He\u2019s got a really nice action when he\u2019s moving along like that and I thought he showed a lot of heart.\u201d<\/p>
Purton also piloted John Size-trained Erimo to a comfortable win in the Class 3 Suisse Programme Handicap (1400m), having earlier kick-started Chris So\u2019s three-timer atop Smart Leader.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
De Sousa reached the Hong Kong 100-win mark in spectacular fashion. He first combined with Tony Cruz to land the Class 4 Grace One Handicap (1200m) aboard Brave Dreams before bringing up the century with Turquoise Alpha in the Class 4 Ahava Handicap (1600m) for Pierre Ng.<\/p>
Ng and De Sousa later successfully teamed up in the penultimate race with Science Patch, who narrowly defeated Good Buddy and a luckless Beauty Eternal to clinch the Class 3 La Estephe Handicap (1200m).<\/p>
\u201cIt\u2019s great and thanks to Pierre, he\u2019s been giving the opportunities and kept me on his horses who are running well and it\u2019s nice to achieve that goal,\u201d De Sousa, a three-time British Champion Jockey, said.<\/p>
Chris So enjoyed a stunning afternoon, slotting a treble inside the first four races.<\/p>
Eight-year-old Smart Leader bolted in with the Class 5 L\u2019Oreal Paris Handicap (1200m) for Purton, giving So the first leg of the three-timer before Matthew Chadwick extracted the best from Flying High in a short-head victory over Baby Crystal in the Class 4 Kate Tokyo Handicap (1000m) proved decisive.<\/p>
Angus Chung then produced a wonderful ride aboard Young Victory in the Class 4 Canmake Tokyo Handicap (1400m) to seal So\u2019s treble.<\/p>
\u201cTo have three winners today, I\u2019m a bit surprised. It feels good, of course, and I\u2019m very happy. The training ranks are very competitive but I\u2019m not going too bad,\u201d said So, who has nine winners for the campaign.<\/p>
Frankie Lor will attempt to build A Pal\u2019s rating in a bid to contest the HK$48 million Four-Year-Old Classic Series after the gelding\u2019s striking victory under Derek Leung in the Class 3 Eleanor Handicap (1400m).<\/p>
\u201cHis rating today was 66, so maybe he might get 10 points, but he would still need to win again to get into the Four-Year-Old Classic Series,\u201d Lor said after the More Than Ready chestnut earned a HK$1 million PP bonus for Lee Sheung Chau, who raced BMW Hong Kong Derby winner Furore in the same colours.<\/p>
\u201cHe\u2019s a nice horse but he still needs to relax more.\u201d<\/p>
A Pal formerly raced as Oughton in Australia, winning a 1400m maiden race at Sandown, when trained by Michael, Wayne & John Hawkes.<\/p>
Hong Kong racing continues at Happy Valley on Wednesday night (9 November).<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”6163″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Frankie Lor will consider aiming Money Catcher at the HK$34 million G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup (2000m) at Sha Tin next month after the import ended a frustrating string of near-misses with G3 Sa Sa Ladies\u2019 Purse Handicap (1800m) victory at Sha Tin on Sunday (6 November).Prevailing for the first time… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":6166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6167,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions\/6167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}