Established as the world\u2019s highest-rated sprinter of 2023, Lucky Sweynesse joined elite company with a runaway win in the HK$20 million G1 Chairman\u2019s Sprint Prize (1200m) at Sha Tin on Sunday (30 April).<\/p>
The four-year-old continued his rise to stardom and edged closer to embarking on an ambitious path of potentially tackling elite races either in Japan or Australia in the coming months with a devastating display of power and speed, gliding over the closing 400m in 22.26s.<\/p>
Going into Sunday\u2019s race already armed with a pair of G1 victories this season, the Manfred Man trained four-year-old also collected a HK$5 million bonus for successfully completing the third leg of Hong Kong\u2019s three-race Speed Series.<\/p>
Only three other horses \u2013 Mr Vitality (1995\/96), Grand Delight (2002\/03) and the legendary Silent Witness (2003\/04 & 2004\/05) \u2013 had previously annexed the Speed Series.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]
Lucky Sweynesse delivers a powerhouse performance.<\/p>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Forced to work hard early in the race when taken out a little wider than Zac Purton would have liked, Lucky Sweynesse left no doubt about his superiority over the seven other runners when he surged away with the race by three and a quarter lengths to justify his red-hot starting price.<\/p>
Lucky Sweynesse\u2019s slice from the HK$20 million prize purse for finishing first was HK$11.4 million to give the gelding a total winning cheque of HK$16.4 million for the day and added a further accolade to the sprint sensation.<\/p>
It was Purton\u2019s first win in the race since Ivictory in 2018 and his fifth overall FWD Champions Day G1 win, while Lucky Sweynesse delivered Man\u2019s first FWD Champions Day G1 winner.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”20761″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Purton said the sky was now the limit for Lucky Sweynesse and believes the gelding will continue to get better.<\/p>
\u201cThat was what we were hoping to see today and it was just a matter of whether he could get out of the gates and get himself into a nice position and to his credit he begun really well today but obviously had Wellington and Sight Success holding their spot inside me going into the first corner and trying to make me do a little bit of work so I was worried doing the next bit of work on him might be a telling factor but this horse just continues to get better,\u201d Purton said.<\/p>
\u201cI feel like we\u2019re going to see a better horse again next season. The sky is the limit at the moment.\u201d<\/p>
Purton explained that Lucky Sweynesse was not like any other sprinter he\u2019d ridden, saying he is not explosive out of the gates and doesn\u2019t travel like a normal willing sprinter.<\/p>
\u201cHe’s very unassuming and once he gets out of the gates, you can ride him anywhere. Inside, outside,\u201d Purton said. \u201cHe\u2019s versatile in his races, he can come from back in the field, he\u2019s led, he\u2019s stalked the leader.<\/p>
\u201cHe’s such a lovely horse and he\u2019s very laidback and he conserves his energy for races.\u201d<\/p>
Asked about how special winning the race was, Purton said: \u201cThey’re all special, they’re all different in their own way, horses are different, the connections are different and the path to get here is different so they all mean a lot and obviously this horse for Manfred at the tail end of his career and maybe the tail end of mine as well, this could be a fitting way for both of us to go out.\u201d<\/p>
Lucky Sweynesse wasn\u2019t the only Hong Kong horse in the race chasing glory in the 1200m scamper. The reigning Hong Kong champion sprinter of last season, Wellington was aiming to become just the second three-time winner of the Chairman\u2019s Sprint Prize after taking out the race in the past two years.<\/p>
Ridden by Alexis Badel, Wellington finished third behind the second-placed Courier Wonder, trained by John Size and ridden by Hugh Bowman.<\/p>
England with Flaming Rib and Japan\u2019s Aguri failed in their bids to join Australia\u2019s grey flash Chautauqua as the only raider to win the race in 2016 when it was opened to international visitors.<\/p>
The world now beckons Lucky Sweynesse which holds an entry for June\u2019s G1 Yasuda Kinen (1600m) in Tokyo. Another option is to gain a slot in the HK$77 million The Everest (1200m) at Sydney\u2019s Randwick Racecourse in October.<\/p>
Lucky Sweynesse has not raced beyond 1400m and Purton admitted after the race that he is unsure about 1600m for the speedster but after the race trainer Manfred Man, who is in the twilight of his long training career, said he would possibly restrict the horses to distances up to 1400m.<\/p>
Manfred Man was non-committal when discussing Lucky Sweynesse\u2019s future, which might include tilts at either the G1 Yasuda Kinen (1600m) in Tokyo in June or The Everest (1200m) in Sydney in October.<\/p>
\u201cI think, at this moment, we’re thinking about 1200m or 1400m distance,\u201d Man said. \u201cOne mile is still a concern, the distance.<\/p>
\u201cWe\u2019re still thinking. I need to discuss with the owner first. When we make the decision, we\u2019ll tell everybody.\u201d<\/p>
Man said he was confident that Lucky Sweynesse would win.<\/p>
\u201cThis is very special to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”20760″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Established as the world\u2019s highest-rated sprinter of 2023, Lucky Sweynesse joined elite company with a runaway win in the HK$20 million G1 Chairman\u2019s Sprint Prize (1200m) at Sha Tin on Sunday (30 April).The four-year-old continued his rise to stardom and edged closer to embarking on an ambitious path of potentially tackling… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":20762,"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\/20757"}],"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=20757"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20766,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20757\/revisions\/20766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}