Visiting New Zealand trainer Andrew Forsman was hoping to snare a better barrier for his galloper Aegon in the HK$20 million G1 FWD Champions Mile (1600m) at Sha Tin on Sunday, but the Kiwi is fatalistic ahead of Sunday\u2019s feature at Sha Tin on 30 April.<\/p>
The young trainer believes there is no point worrying about things you can\u2019t control over and, on reflection, concedes drawing barrier five in the eight-horse field could have been worse.<\/p>
\u201cAt the end of the day he is probably going to settle back any way, but it would have been nice to have drawn a little bit softer,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a smaller field and he shouldn\u2019t be too far off them.<\/p>
\u201cIf he is close enough, hopefully he is good enough to be in it.\u201d<\/p>
Forsman said he hoped that applying the blinkers for the first time on the Group 1-winning Aegon would reap some benefits but admitted he was a little worried how it would affect the horse coming out of the barriers.<\/p>
\u201cHe has never been good and always can scrabble out of the gates a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think the blinkers will help him travel up into the race when he sets up on a bit of flat spot. We haven\u2019t done much work with him this week.\u201d<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”20415″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Aegon, winner of the G1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas (1600m) and also a G2 winner in Sydney, had a solid hit-out on the Sha Tin turf last Saturday (22 April) and again galloped on the grass on Thursday.<\/p>
\u201cWith his track work on Thursday we tried to make him go as steady as he could, but he had a good hit out last Saturday so he has had his good serious work about a week ago,\u201d Forsman said.<\/p>
\u201cThis week has really been just about keeping him up to the mark.\u2019\u2019<\/p>
Forsman said Aegon is well travelled and has had a lot of flights and there was no surprise the five-year-old son of Sacred Falls had settled in well to his temporary home at Sha Tin.<\/p>
\u201cWe are hoping that a small field will help him on Sunday,\u201d he said.<\/p>
Forsman said Aegon would complete his work leading into Sunday\u2019s race with a couple of quiet laps of Sha Tin\u2019s All Weather track on Saturday.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”20414″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
While Aegon, to be ridden by Australian-based James McDonald, will be up against Hong Kong\u2019s best in Golden Sixty and California Spangle, the gelding will also be opposed to Australia\u2019s My Oberon, who has drawn the outside barrier for Sydney trainer Annabel Neasham and jockey Joao Moreira.<\/p>
My Oberon is represented by 16 owners who have travelled from Australia to Hong Kong for the race and though they would have liked to have drawn in a bit closer, one of the owners, Glenn Carmody said they weren\u2019t too concerned.<\/p>
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to be drawn in but five to seven would have been ideal,\u201d Carmody said. \u201cIt\u2019s a small field and there looks to be good speed in it and he should be able to find a spot.\u201d<\/p>
Neasham arrived in Hong Kong on Friday afternoon.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”20413″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Visiting New Zealand trainer Andrew Forsman was hoping to snare a better barrier for his galloper Aegon in the HK$20 million G1 FWD Champions Mile (1600m) at Sha Tin on Sunday, but the Kiwi is fatalistic ahead of Sunday\u2019s feature at Sha Tin on 30 April.The young trainer believes there is… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":20416,"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\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20412"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20418,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20412\/revisions\/20418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}