A few things about Hong Kong racing scare the crap outta me- Dougie Whyte riding a Sean Woods horse which, yes, is better than riding Sean Woods, but it always ends up in the Durban Turban coming undone and looking like a snake charmer with a rabid snake on his hands.
Other scary things: Calling on the last leg of a Six Up Bonus and it being a horse ridden by Wayward Weichong McMarwing- or Dougie on a Sean Woods mount- any race meeting that has Saddlers Lodge/Holyangelholy. any race meeting where I spot the ubiquitous Natalis Chan and Bennett Pang, below, shamelessly hogging a photo opp with a winning horse which doesn’t even belong to them and an all-weather meeting.
On Wednesday, there’s no Happy Valley Happy Wednesday. Instead, there is a scary all-weather meeting at, darn, Shatin and which means my mates and I being locked outta doing what we usually do which is to check out who’s at Adrenaline and where, if not hopping with rabbits, we’d go down and scan the Beer Garden where there are always lost female tourists from France and Scandinavia wanting a hand and not knowing a win from a wine and Jack Black from Dougie Whyte and Brown Sugar.
Once we have made contact and solidified the rest of the night and the rest of their time in Hong Kong, it’s always good to get to the rails and hurl abuse at some of the boys cantering their horses to the barriers as most of them are as bored as us when racing on the all-dirt surface.
So what about the racing at Shatin? Well, Wednesday is the day after the 51st birthday of Tony Millard and which is headline news in the local racing papers.
Why? Cos anyone well-known in racing having had a birthday right before or right after a race meeting means them giving themselves a gift in the shape of a wiener. Sorry, winner.And if you believe that superstition, you have been playing with the pixies for far too long. Still, Millard has called on the services of young Umberto Rispoli, going Gangnam below, making his first appearance on Wednesday as part of his new Hong Kong stint, for three of his four entries.
I also wouldn’t rule out the prospects of the disappointing Masquerader which has Richard Fourie on it and was purchased with the Derby in mind and has shown some improvement on the all-weather surface.
“Towwy are we weeely hwappy wi thwis masqweade we pway?”
In Race 5, Millard’s Lifeline Elite ridden by Rispoli clashes with the John Size first starter Victorious.
The latter galloper is said to be very good in a race full of all-weather specialists such as Green Zone and Gold Edition. Still, I lean quite heavily towards Victorious. In fact, I am leaning so heavily, I might topple over.
Elsewhere, horses I like are O’Halo and Namjong Blossoms in Race 3, the quaintly named Mr Marfach in Race 4, Magnumous in Race 6- Tony Cruz was never good at spelling- along with Happy Cha Cha and Champagne Days, Loads Of Joy in Race 7, despite having Weichong McMarwing on its back, and perhaps Masquerader, Simple and another of my hoodoo horses in Earl Of Leitrim which Dougie Whyte has finally deserted and Little Timmy Clark has jumped on.
The Earl Of Leitrim
The horse really is not as good as its owner thinks and won a very weak race at Newbury with Shane Kelly aboard and where it raced under the same name and should have been left to race in the UK. Who knows? It might be an all-dirt specialist? Hell, I think I know more about this horse than the owner.
Speaking of Little Timmy Clark, I hear The Hobbit was in line to ride Power Princess in the Group 1 Winterbottom Stakes when its regular jockey Peter Knuckey injured himself. Alas, this is not to be and with that ride now going to, I think, Patrick Carberry. I reckon, The Hobbit would have gone very close to winning the race which takes place in two weeks time.
Other than all this and as we wait for Stylish Sunday’s racing at Shatin which will be very good, this will all take place amidst a big blow up between David Ferraris aka Darth Vader and Weichong McMarwing.
The fallout apparently went ka-boom during trackwork on Tuesday and the jockey telling Darth to take his horses and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine which has resulted in many gruff phone calls to find replacement jockeys.
“Bill? David? No, David Ferraris! Can you lose a few pounds and ride my horses on Sunday? No, not David Hall!!! It’s me- DARTH!!!”
If it’s not one thing, it’s something else. And if it’s not something else, it’s something else somewhere else. In China, for example, Durex hints at the difference between Obama and Romney.
Meanwhile, many of us still cannot get over the spooky similarity between General David Petraeus, former Chief of the CIA, who is embroiled in a very weird extra-marital affair with a real hottie, and trainer John Size who has also been through a few wars of his own and which resulted in his training of a horse named Entrapment.
As the Guru always says, a man’s brinjal is a complicated thing and which can rise and fall down the Valley Of The Dhals without any real rhyme nor reason.
The Guru
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