Something has to give at Sha Tin on Saturday as two of Hong Kong’s hottest young properties put impressive winning streaks on the line.
The clash between Mighty Giant (129lb) and Sky Field (123lb) in the Class 2 Argyle Handicap is the clear highlight of the day with all the elements of a thrilling finale.
First, it sees last season’s champion trainer Ricky Yiu against Caspar Fownes, who has made no secret of his desire to seize the crown and has come out firing with 15 winners to lie four clear of Frankie Lor atop the table.
Caspar Fownes believes Sky Field has what it takes (Pic – HKJC)
Second, it pits a resurgent Joao Moreira against a hungry champion jockey Zac Purton, who goes into the weekend seeking to reignite his title challenge after a 30-race losing streak, his longest for four years.
Most of all, Saturday’s race features two richly promising horses with starkly contrasting running styles and Fownes feels that Sky Field’s racing manners and a possible change in tactics hold the key to solving the puzzle.
The flashy chestnut bounded through Class 4 and Class 3 tasks with a trio of striking 1200m wins but a tendency to race freely under restraint from Moreira resurfaced on his latest start and Fownes concedes that this maiden voyage over 1400m needs to go smoothly if hopes of a tilt at the Hong Kong Classic Mile in January are to be realistic.
“It’s a testing race for us this weekend,” he said. “Sky Field’s ability’s not in question, it’s just he’s still doing a few things wrong. I gave him a trial last Friday just to try and teach him to learn a bit more and again he wanted to just come out and do his own thing.
“But I said to Joao that it doesn’t matter if he wants to get out on the lead as he might just switch off in front. We’re not going to go out with an exact game plan. We’re just going to try and have the horse as comfortable as we can get him without him wanting to get on with it.
“He’s still learning and this is a good test with a couple of nice, handy horses in there and this will tell us where we are at this stage of his career. There’s big money everywhere for this type of horse and if it means we’ve got to sprint him to do that then we’ll do that. I still believe he should run the trip out strong but, like anything, he’s got to do it the right way.”
Fownes is unperturbed by the fact that Sky Field took a little while to subdue the unfancied Keep You Warm three weeks ago and is confident that a new rating of 88 still underplays the four-year-old’s potential.
“It was a soft win, Joao had a lot more there,” he added. “Trust me, he’s very much a triple figures horse, that’s not an issue. He’s probably six to twelve months away from being physically and mentally at his peak. Probably next December is where we’ll see him at his best but, in the interim period, he’s got to get his way into triple figures and then we’ll see where we go.”
Hong Kong racing starts at 07h00.
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