There will be another Eustace among the names for Sha Tin\u2019s LONGINES\u00a0Hong\u00a0Kong\u00a0International Races on Sunday (14 December) once again with David’s brother Harry hoping for a more prominent showing from his stable star Docklands.<\/p>
The elder sibling of one of Hong Kong’s brightest training talents has had a banner year himself, with Docklands becoming his first top-level winner in the G1 Queen Anne Stakes (1600m) at Royal Ascot in June.<\/p>
Now a very experienced five-year-old, he bids to improve upon last year’s 12th-placed finish when tackling the HK$36 million G1 LONGINES\u00a0Hong\u00a0Kong\u00a0Mile (1600m).<\/p>
The son of Massaat was most recently a staying-on ninth behind Jantar Mantar in the G1 Mile Championship (1600m) in Kyoto on 23 November.<\/p>
\u201cHe ran his race,\u201d Eustace said of the last run. “We were drawn 16 of 18, got too far back, but he came home well. When I looked at the result again, the winner won by a couple of lengths but we weren’t far away from actually being involved with the rest. I think with a better draw, we’d have been among them. So, we’re very happy and it was a brilliant experience.”<\/p>
Looking towards his challenge at Sha Tin, Eustace points to some encouraging factors.<\/p>
\u201cLast year was maybe a messy second half of the year for him because we were tilting towards the Cox (Plate, G1) over 2040m,\u201d he said.<\/p>
\u201cHe ran well in the Queen Anne, then City Of Troy’s Juddmonte International, then the Cox Plate, took on Via Sistina again in the Champion Stakes, then went back to a sharp mile in Hong Kong.<\/p>
\u201cI feel this year versus last year, he’s obviously a better horse and more consistent and competitive at the top level.<\/p>
\u201cI hope it’s stood him in good stead for travelling again. If we could get an OK draw, I think he could show up a bit better than he did last year, that’s for sure.\u201d<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]
Docklands wins the G1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot this year.<\/p>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Docklands has arrived ahead of all the visiting brigade and made the short journey through Asia last week.<\/p>
\u201cHe took the travelling very well and looks very fresh and well,\u201d Eustace said.<\/p>
\u201cHe had his first day on the track last Wednesday (3 December), he obviously ran (recently), so he’s fit and we’re really just ticking him over until a week Sunday (14 December). He might have a little leg-stretch this Wednesday or Thursday ((10 or 11 December) but that’ll be about it.\u201d<\/p>
It will be a family reunion for the popular Eustace brothers, although a battle between the pair on the track might have to wait for another year.<\/p>
\u201cI believe my brother (David) is going to have a runner (Massive Sovereign) in the 2000m race (HK$40 million G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup) – he nearly had a runner in the mile race in which would have been even more fun,\u201d Eustace said.<\/p>
\u201cTo both be involved in a day like this is just fantastic for the pair of us. And if we can pick up a bit of prize-money that would be super.\u201d<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”10425″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]There will be another Eustace among the names for Sha Tin\u2019s LONGINES\u00a0Hong\u00a0Kong\u00a0International Races on Sunday (14 December) once again with David’s brother Harry hoping for a more prominent showing from his stable star Docklands.The elder sibling of one of Hong Kong’s brightest training talents has had a banner year himself, with… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":10426,"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\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10418"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10429,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418\/revisions\/10429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}