Though the rumours had been circulating for a few days, aye yai yai, muchachos, the news that powerful businessman hombre Pan Sutong has moved his horses from the ranchero of Ricardo Montalban Gibson to the bigger ranchero of Señor Antonio Cruz, still raised many eyebrows and softened even the crispest taco shells.
Ricardo Montalban Gibson needed this New Year present like a muchos big hole in his Mexican wall. Not only hasn’t the smooth operator trained a winner, or even a wiener, for over two months, and is lying like a flattened Pancho at the bottom of the trainers’ ladder, his most loyal owner for whom, when the going was good, he had trained four Group 1 winners decided to say, Adios. Of course, two of those winners were ridden on the same day by El Durban Diablo Douglas Whyte, and Señor Sutong said Adios to him, so what’s another Adios between billionaires when loss of face is at stake?
The question is whether the new partnership between Señors Sutong and Cruz will result in muchos amour, and a number of new expensive purchases as the Pan Man’s equine stock these days is a bit on the thin side, or whether the no-nonsense trainer will show him the door just as he did to itty bitty owner Pato Leung, who tried to tell El Champion Trainer what to do. Stupido. Señor Sutong is known to want complete control over his horses, and to demand who should ride them, mainly Christophe Soumillon. Time will tell if Señor Cruz agrees to play second Chiquita banana in this partnership.
As for Señor Ricardo, he should do everything possible- like begging- to make sure that he doesn’t lose Who Dat Singa, who made a very nice debut last weekend, and with connections having Derby aspirations for their expensive purchase from Perth. We understand that Who Dat Singer is set to run again on the eighth of this month over 1600 metres.
What else? As expected, Pakistan Star won the Griffin Trophy, but it didn’t beat much, and is still a work in progress with The Magic Man doing his best to help the promising young galloper to not race like a scared pussycat when next to other horses. The race reminded us of The Education Of Rita Moreno. What’s not needed now is for all the racing amigos to start using the words “cult” and “viral” and go BOOM and BANG. Instead, like Larry David, please Curb The Enthusiasm, and let owner Señor Din’s big baby find his feet without expecting him to be an overnight Speedy Gonzales and ends up being another Vanilla Ice.
The big question is whether Magic Moreira will ride Pakistan Star again if the race clashes with him having to choose from riding either Rapper Dragon or even My Darling. We think he’s already made up his mind, and will be rapping like Snoop Dogg with Menudo.
Meanwhile, us Three Amigos were very impressed with the win of the well-educated DB Pin and is our Horse To Watch, whereas the jockey to follow and do a Mexican Hat Dance every time he rides a winner over the next few weeks- but maybe not today- and before his current stint in Hong Kong ends, is Sylvestre de Sousa.
After a quiet start to his stint here this season, Señor Sylvestre came roaring back on the weekend like an hombre who’s bitten into a hot tamale with a great Trebelo, and are tipping he continues riding more winners on what is a muchos difficult day of racing to start 2017. What’s interesting are a number of runners entered by Almond Lee and with El Zaco aboard most of the winning hopes, who would be our pick to easily win the Jockey Challenge. The tough races are races 6,7, and 9 with even Mr Stunning not looking bullet proof and an Antonio Banderas standout waiting to be worshipped by heavy breathing señoritas.
Speaking of amigo Antonio, what the hell happened to Señorita Banderas’ face??? Aye yai yai!
RACE 1 7-2-8-9
Our old amigo, these days, the always happy David “Darth” Ferraris, with fourteen winners on the board and numerous placings, and now that he has a new swimming pool, where he can swim with his horses, has THREE runners entered for this Class 5 affair, which is guaranteed a huge Quartet payout as no one can tell which horses might suddenly wake up and smell the char siu baos.
Things are not made easier by this being a distance race where there will be plenty of chopping and changing during the running- “You go first,” “no, you go first”, “let him go first” etc until someone throws a Spaniard in the works by making a mid-race move to confuse things even more. It can become quite a bumbling mess, and reminiscent of The Three Amigos at Kyoto Joe last night seeing in 2017 with our amigos Señors Sake and Jose Cuervo.
RACE 2 2-4-10-5
From a distance race, we go south of the border down Mexico way, and to a 1000 metre sprint, where, again, there could be some flies in the ornament that will come off the pace to add some spice to the Quartet.
Having said this, we’ll hold onto our sombreros, and cheer home apprentice Dylan Mo. He’s sure to take Fish’N Chips straight to the front and hang on for dear life to record his first win in Hong Kong, which is taking quite a while to happen while The Poon Train aka Hong Kong-born apprentice Matthew Poon is waiting in the wings riding winners in Queensland before returning to riding winners here.
RACE 3 2-7-14-8
El Zaco riding for Almond Lee in a Class 5 race- Wingold (2)- just has to be included in a Quartet that we’re tipping could be not just huge, but YUUUUGE!!!
RACE 4 5-10-4-7
El Zaco should win this on Go Beauty Go, but don’t be surprised if Sammy Clipperton gets the very best out of Daring Dart (10). His last run had sirens going off.
RACE 5 4-11-6-2
Frankly, we will make Daring Fit (11) our banker in this, the first leg of the Triple Trio with a massive payout if lucky enough to win it, but all those form students keep telling us that the John Size-trained first starter Infinity Endeavour (4) is something special. Who are we lovely gauchos to disagree? Our question is where’s the value if these two run in the top three?
RACE 6 12-13-10-9
The first leg of the Six Up where you can take the entire field and still lose. We’ll be looking at those at the bottom of the totem pole, but shudder to think what might happen. It’s like the shower scene from Señor Hitchcock’s “Psycho”.
You can kill it with your steely knife, but you just can’t kill the beast.
RACE 7 3-2-1-9
Again, another open leg of the Six Up, but we really like Right Call (3) and glad to see a change of jockeys on those Volatility horses- here, High Volatility (2) with the often overlooked Brett Prebble aboard and not regular rider the suspended- that’s putting it mildly- Howard “The Duck” Cheng.
RACE 8 5-2-1-8
The day’s feature event- the Group 3 Chinese Club Challenge Cup- where there’s no need to look any further than Contentment (1), Joyful Trinity (2) and Blizzard (5).
RACE 9 4-2-9-13-14
We’re back to another tough leg of the Six Up and where there can easily be a blowout.
RACE 10 3-11-13-8
We really can’t see anything else other than Seasons Bloom (3), Beat The Clock (11) and Regency Bo Bo (13) running the quintella. Or as you hombres call it, a quinella.
RACE 11 5-13-3-2
We’re hungry Amigos here looking for value, which is why we have Mr Stunning on our third line. Mr Stunning can be ridden off the pace or from the front, and Señor Joao is the best horseman we have ever seen, but there are some pretty good horses here, and from a wide barrier, Mr Stunning, apparently named after the HKJC’s Mr Bubbles, might be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again.
BEST BET Race 10: Seasons Bloom (3)
NEXT BEST Race 7: Right Call (3)
LONGSHOT Race 11: Most Beautiful (13)
SIX UP R6: 1-3-4-9-10-12-13 R7: 2-3 R8: 2-5 R9: 2-4-9-13-14 R10: 3 R11: 2-3-5-6-10-13
PARTING SHOT
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