It was a case of third time lucky for California Spangle at Sha Tin this afternoon (Sunday, 11 December) as he sensationally denied Golden Sixty\u2019s record-equalling G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile (1600m) hat-trick bid in front of a raucous 42,624 crowd.<\/p>\r\n
Beaten by Golden Sixty in the 2022 G1 FWD Champions Mile (1600m) and last month\u2019s G2 BOCHK Private Wealth Jockey Club Mile (1600m), California Spangle reversed the result with his first-top level crown for trainer Tony Cruz and jockey Zac Purton.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud of the horse. I expected him to win (Hong Kong) International Races one day and lucky I have Zac with me. Zac rode the perfect race today,\u201d Cruz said.<\/p>\r\n
Stepping away cleanly under Purton, the four-year-old fired forward before denying a brave Golden Sixty by a neck in 1m 33.41s for the trip, while Laws Of Indices and Beauty Joy filled third and fourth places, respectively.<\/p>\r\n
Injecting a bit of mid-race pace into the contest, Beauty Joy found the front at the 800m mark ahead of his stablemate (California Spangle) before fading late. The win is California Spangle\u2019s ninth from 14 starts in Hong Kong, including victories in last season\u2019s Hong Kong Classic Cup (1800m) and this season\u2019s G3 Celebration Cup Handicap (1400m) and G2 Oriental Watch Sha Tin Trophy Handicap (1600m).<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]
California Spangle keeps finding for Purton.<\/p>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
\u201cWe planned the tactics and how to ride the race, but everything can change in seconds and somehow it turned out to be so fantastic.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cCalifornia Spangle is a rising horse and with Golden Sixty, age has come to catch up with him. I think this is where we got the advantage,\u201d Cruz said.<\/p>\r\n
The win is Purton\u2019s fourth in the race after the victories of Ambitious Dragon (2012), Beauty Only (2016) and Beauty Generation (2018), while the success is Cruz\u2019s fourth also after Lucky Owners (2003), Beauty Flash (2010) and Beauty Only (2016).<\/p>\r\n
\u201cIt was pretty straightforward early. Tony pre-race asked me if I could just let the horse roll along a little bit more than we did last time. He\u2019s a lot more relaxed this season and he kept coming back underneath me. I kept trying to click him along but he was waiting for the other horses, I think we\u2019ve seen today that he is a little bit versatile. When Beauty Joy came around him he was happy to let him go and it helped him think about what was going on. He got into a lovely rhythm in behind and wanted to chase him.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cThen when he got clear of him he wanted to wait a little bit which was a worrying time for me when I could feel Golden Sixty breathing down my neck again. Today I thought he had me at the 200 (metre mark) and then at the 100 (metre mark) I thought, \u2018he hasn\u2019t quite got me yet.\u2019 We kept trying and we were lucky to get the result today,\u201d Purton said.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”36267″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Cruz is confident of bigger and better things from his talented charge: \u201cYoung horses like California Spangle can improve his character in time. It\u2019s easy to train a horse to get fit but it\u2019s how you train a horse in his mind. That is the hardest bit of it.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cI believe Spangle\u2019s racing mind is turning more professional, and he\u2019s getting better all the time. Obviously when you have a great jockey like Zac, you don\u2019t make mistakes anymore.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
California Spangle enhances his earnings to a mouthwatering HK$48,878,300 after collecting HK$17,100,000 for first place.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very good. He\u2019s shown right throughout his career he\u2019s a horse that deserves to be in the top echelon,\u201d Purton said. \u201cIt took Golden Sixty to beat him last time and I think Golden Sixty is the best I\u2019ve seen since I\u2019ve been here and there\u2019s no disgrace in that.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cEvery run he\u2019s had, he\u2019s put in. He\u2019s a phenomenal horse and he\u2019s versatile. He\u2019s won over 1000, 1200, 1600, 1800 and just got beat over 2000 (metres) Not many horses can do that.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
Defeat for Golden Sixty was just the champion\u2019s fourth across his career which boasts 22 wins, including six at Group 1 level for trainer Francis Lui and jockey Vincent Ho.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cMy horse ran very well and I\u2019m happy for him. The other one had good pace and saved all the ground,\u201d Ho said.<\/p>\r\n
Jockey James McDonald was elated with the performance of Laws Of Indices for trainer Annabel Neasham: \u201cHe went enormous. It was unreal. I’m so proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
Hong Kong racing continues this Wednesday (14 December) at Happy Valley.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”36265″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It was a case of third time lucky for California Spangle at Sha Tin this afternoon (Sunday, 11 December) as he sensationally denied Golden Sixty\u2019s record-equalling G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile (1600m) hat-trick bid in front of a raucous 42,624 crowd. Beaten by Golden Sixty in the 2022 G1 FWD Champions… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":36266,"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":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36261"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36261"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36403,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36261\/revisions\/36403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}