John Size will chase a pair of remarkable feats with Waikuku when his stable star lines up to contest a fourth HK$12 million G1 Stewards\u2019 Cup (1600m) at Sha Tin on Sunday afternoon (29 January).<\/p>\r\n
No eight-year-old has ever won the Stewards\u2019 Cup dating back to the 1980s, while across this period no horse has ever returned three wins in the race \u2013 two records Waikuku will be chanced with setting this weekend after his victories in 2020 and 2022.<\/p>\r\n
A three-time Group 1 winner in Hong Kong and famed with halting Golden Sixty\u2019s winning streak at 16 in last year\u2019s renewal, Waikuku will once again play the role of David in a bid to overthrow Goliath \u2013 except this time he faces a trio of colossal figures: Golden Sixty, Romantic Warrior and California Spangle.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cNow we have three world-class horses in the race, excluding Waikuku, so it\u2019s an astounding event. It\u2019s just amazing that we could get this quality of horses with our (horse) population.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cHe has beaten some giants in the past but only one at a time, like Golden Sixty and Beauty Generation, to take on three horses of this quality looks like an ominous task,\u201d Size said.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]
Waikuku defies Golden Sixty in the 2022 Stewards\u2019 Cup.<\/p>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Waikuku finished eighth last start in the 2022 G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile (1600m), however, he is no stranger to finding winning form in the Stewards\u2019 Cup after prevailing in the 2022 edition off a seventh placing and the 2020 edition after finishing second.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cHe seems healthy, he\u2019s in good shape, he\u2019s sound and he looks good \u2013 he\u2019ll be happy to be there but the competition might be a bit beyond him at this point.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been remarkable, he\u2019s picked his day and he\u2019s picked his race and he\u2019s got it right on those three occasions and when he\u2019s won those races, he\u2019s had something up his sleeve and some sort of favour.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not going to get any favours here but we hope that he runs well, obviously he\u2019s in the twilight of his career and one day hopefully he enjoys his retirement,\u201d Size said.<\/p>\r\n
Size holds the all-time record for wins in the Stewards\u2019 Cup with seven overall as a trainer after the victories of Electronic Unicorn (2002 & 2003), Super Kid (2004), Armada (2007), Glorious Days (2013) and Waikuku (2020 & 2022).<\/p>\r\n
The 68-year-old will be two-pronged later on the card in the HK$12 million Hong Kong Classic Mile (1600m) when Sweet Encounter and Tuchel contest the age-restricted race.<\/p>\r\n
Sweet Encounter will pair with Ryan Moore for the first time and the duo will step away from gate two. Moore will also ride Waikuku for Size.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cIt seems like he\u2019s in good form, he\u2019s quite consistent and solid. He\u2019s been beaten twice in six starts \u2013 both times with some excuses, but he\u2019s a beautiful animal, he\u2019s got a very good temperament, he\u2019s well-built and at this point seems to be trouble free,\u201d Size said.<\/p>\r\n
Sweet Encounter is a four-time winner from six starts, tasting defeat only twice \u2013 including at his most recent outing after winning over 1800m two starts ago.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”6885″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
\u201cHis trial the other morning showed he had a bit of a spring in his step and that he was quite happy to be there. He had a month between runs last time and that might have been telling in the finish, the winner carried 25 pounds less than him, so I thought his run was sound coming back 200 metres (from 1800m to 1600m).<\/p>\r\n
\u201cHe (Ryan Moore) was pencilled in for this horse, he saw him win on International Day over 1800 metres and I think he was a bit taken by that with regards to the future that he could run 2000 metres,\u201d Size said.<\/p>\r\n
Tuchel has gone from strength-to-strength for Size, nailing his fourth win at his eighth start just two weeks ago in Class 2. That outing was his first run since the end of September.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cIt was very pleasing, you could see in the Parade Ring, it was quite obvious that he wanted to be there and he was going to run well, he was just bounding with good health and enthusiasm. He travelled three-wide facing the breeze but he got comfortable and in that class he was comfortable with it,\u201d Size said.<\/p>\r\n
Luke Currie will ride the 83-rater this weekend, breaking from gate six for the first leg of the three-race Four-Year-Old Classic Series.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cIt was probably an expectable performance from him, he was well found in the market and he did the job. Two weeks after that is a little soon to come back and have an outstanding run and to back him up after 14 days but the options for him going forward weren\u2019t particularly attractive, so I thought he might as well run against horses his same age and hope that his quality will help him run well,\u201d Size said.<\/p>\r\n
Sunday\u2019s (29 January) 10-race fixture at Sha Tin kicks off at 1pm with the Class 5 Giant Treasure Handicap (1650m, dirt).<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”6886″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]John Size will chase a pair of remarkable feats with Waikuku when his stable star lines up to contest a fourth HK$12 million G1 Stewards\u2019 Cup (1600m) at Sha Tin on Sunday afternoon (29 January). No eight-year-old has ever won the Stewards\u2019 Cup dating back to the 1980s, while across this… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":6884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"2normal","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881"}],"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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6881"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6899,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881\/revisions\/6899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/4yo-series\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}