Fresh from an impromptu riding cameo in Great Britain, Harry Bentley hopes to spark a successful start to the 2025\/26 Hong Kong season when he partners Victor The Winner in the HK$3.72 million Class 1 HKSAR Chief Executive\u2019s Cup Handicap (1200m) at Sha Tin on Sunday (7 September).<\/p>
Pitted against fellow Group 1 winners Ka Ying Rising and Lucky Sweynesse, G1 Centenary Sprint Cup (1200m) winner Victor The Winner will jump from barrier eight for Bentley and trainer David Eustace, having won the 2023 HKSAR Chief Executive\u2019s Cup for Danny Shum and Karis Teetan.<\/p>
Bentley, 33, will ride Victor The Winner \u2013 a seven-time course and distance victor \u2013 for the first time.<\/p>
\u201cI galloped him on Tuesday (2 September) and he felt very well. Naturally, we\u2019re taking on the likes of Ka Ying Rising, so it\u2019s going to be a very tough ask for anyone but \u2018Victor\u2019 has got the minimum weight of 115 (pounds), which I\u2019ll be doing.<\/p>
\u201cYou have got to give any horse with that sort of weight some sort of a chance and I\u2019m happy with the ride, pleased to have picked him up and we\u2019ll give it a good crack.\u201d<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7182″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Sunday\u2019s HKSAR Chief Executive\u2019s Cup is headed by the world\u2019s highest-rated sprinter Ka Ying Rising (135lb), who is attempting to win the race for the second time.<\/p>
Ka Ying Rising concedes weight to all 11 rivals \u2013 Lucky Sweynesse (126lb), Lucky With You (116lb) and Beauty Waves, Victor The Winner, Copartner Prance, Raging Blizzard, Magic Control, Bottomuptogether, Divano, Gorgeous Win and Harmony N Blessed \u2013 who have all been assigned 115lb.<\/p>
Ka Ying Rising (2024), Victor The Winner (2023) and Lucky Sweynesse (2022) are all attempting to become the first horse to win the HKSAR Chief Executive\u2019s Cup twice.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7181″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Six-time champion jockey in Qatar, Bentley has three rides this Sunday apart from Victor The Winner \u2013 Flying Akeed, Golden Fairy and Yoda\u2019s Choice.<\/p>
The Englishman had no intentions of riding during the off-season but ended up taking part in six races at York on 20 August after accepting trainer Michael Bell\u2019s offer to partner Spicy Marg in the G1 Nunthorpe Stakes (1000m).<\/p>
\u201cI wasn\u2019t planning to take any rides and it was purely a holiday and pure relaxation and I got the offer to ride in the Nunthorpe and it seemed like too good an opportunity to turn down,\u201d Bentley said.<\/p>
\u201cIt was great to be back at York again \u2013 it\u2019s one of the best tracks in the country \u2013 and it was just good to get my eye in actually, especially being a World Pool meeting. It is well covered here in Hong Kong and it\u2019s good for the profile, if nothing else, before the season kicks off here.\u201d<\/p>
Sunday\u2019s (7 September) season-opening meeting at Sha Tin starts with the Class 5 Grassy Hill Handicap (1200m) at 1pm.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7180″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Fresh from an impromptu riding cameo in Great Britain, Harry Bentley hopes to spark a successful start to the 2025\/26 Hong Kong season when he partners Victor The Winner in the HK$3.72 million Class 1 HKSAR Chief Executive\u2019s Cup Handicap (1200m) at Sha Tin on Sunday (7 September).Pitted against fellow Group… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":7183,"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-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7177"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7177"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7218,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7177\/revisions\/7218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-season-opening\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}