Met winner Smart Call takes on Aidan O’Brien’s Highland Reel in Sunday’s Gr1 Longines Hong Kong Vase as she bids for her first success since winning the Cape flagship feature back in January 2016.
Smart Call – flashback to 2016 Gr1 Paddock Stakes
Mauritzfontein stallion Ideal World’s first Gr1 winner has run a few decent races in England and France without finding her winning stride and Sir Michael Stoute throws her into the HK$18 million event that sees past winner Highland Reel bidding to make it a winning swansong before he goes to stud.
Aidan O’Brien’s only previous success came in 2015 with Highland Reel in the Vase and his flag bearer, second in the same race last year, is back again for what will be his final start before he embarks on a well-deserved career at stud.
Highland Reel stretches in track work this week (Pic – Hong Kong Jockey Club)
“Highland Reel has been an incredible horse for us. He has so many qualities. He enjoys what he does, he has shown himself to be a great traveller, he’s clean-winded and a joy to have trained. He’ll be hard to replace,” said O’Brien.
A ‘great traveller’ might be an understatement for the six times Gr 1 winner, given that Highland Reel has been campaigned not only in England, Ireland and France, but in Australia, Dubai and the USA as well. In fact, his only win on Irish turf was a Gowran Park maiden back in his two-year-old days.
Looking ahead to Sunday’s Hong Kong Vase, O’Brien said: “He’s not done a great deal since his last run (when third) in the Breeders’ Cup (Turf), but his lad Davy (Bergin) is very happy with him right now. It was probably not ideal that there were only two weeks between his run at Ascot on ground that didn’t suit and the Breeders’ Cup, but that’s the way it fell, and he needed to run at Ascot.”
The meeting, popularly known as the Turf World Championships, boasts stakes of HK$84,5 million.
Smart Call, who will be ridden by Jim Crowley, runs in the fourth race at 08h00 (SA Time).
Tellytrack (Dstv 239) will broadcast the meeting live.
