Yasuda Kinen

[imaufo]

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Joyful Winner on brink of Japan invitation


ON THE RAILS, with MURRAY BELL

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Christophe Soumillon and Joyful Winner were victorious on Saturday.

Joyful Winner looks a near-certainty to be invited to Japan for the Group One Yasuda Kinen in June, and only has to hold his form in next month's Champions Mile to make a fact of it.

A Champions Mile win in the rematch with his paternal half-brother ( El Moxie) Silent Witness will make Joyful Winner eligible for a US$1 million bonus if he can emulate Fairy King Prawn's feat of six years ago and lift Japan's premier mile.

The five-year-old confirmed his reputation as our most progressive horse by emerging victorious at racing's top level last weekend and his winning dividend of $17.50 for $10 showed he surprised absolutely no one.

Shane Dye declared after his second ride on Joyful Winner - in Class Two back on October 22 - that he was a future Group One horse. Anyone guilty of deriding the jockey at the time would now be looking to locate the tapes and burn them.

The clue to Joyful Winner's continued rise can be summed up in one word - acceleration. It's the quality that separates top horses from mere mortals and every champion has it.

Look at the modern-day greats of Hong Kong racing - Fairy King Prawn, Electronic Unicorn, Olympic Express. So did the two highest-rating foreign horses to perform at Sha Tin over the past decade, Jim And Tonic and Falbrav. They all had superb acceleration, an instant change of pace that kicked in as their riders pressed the button and just as quickly put rivals to the sword.

Silent Witness went very well for his half-length second to Joyful Winner, but it's a performance that has come in for some surprising criticism.

Undoubtedly it was a run that was short of the Witness' sparkling best, but it continues his upward spiral of form as he claws his way back to the performance level that saw him become an unbeaten world champion with 17 straight wins at this time last year.

For those with a bent for figures, Silent Witness is now just one performance step away from his old benchmark rating of 123 - Saturday's run was a 118 performance.

His three runs back have been 108, 113 and now 118 - a perfect geometric progression that points to the conclusion that another 123 is just around the corner.

Hong Kong's ranks of top horses have been thinned out quickly over the past three months. Vengeance Of Rain has been dispatched to New Zealand for some R&R, while Silent Witness struggled against viral hangover and Cape Of Good Hope wrenched a knee.

As quality in any horse population is a pyramid with a narrow peak, finding replacements has been hard. Joyful Winner has stepped up but, at present, is still 1-1/2 lengths below the best of Silent Witness.

If Tony Cruz can extract that final level of improvement from Silent Witness, the score will be levelled on May 7.

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[imaufo]

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Japan trip depends on Mile outing, says Size


ALAN AITKEN

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Leading trainer John Size will consider a Yasuda Kinen trip for Danacourt if the gelding wins the third Asian Mile Challenge leg at Sha Tin on Sunday.

In something of a departure for the conservative Size, he said the four-week break between the Champions Mile and the Yasuda Kinen on June 4 made the trip a possibility if he received an invitation.

"I would think about it but he probably has to win the Champions Mile to even be considered for an invitation and then the horse has to come through Sunday's race in good shape again," said Size, who confirmed that Danacourt would take his place in the Group One Champions Mile after resuming from a long break last weekend.

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By contrast, Size never properly contemplated taking the former champion Electronic Unicorn abroad, believing him too brittle for such assignments, so the signs for Danacourt are at least looking positive. The gelding was narrowly beaten by Happee Owner in the Hong Kong Macau Trophy at his first start for five months but, in contrast to some of his earlier races in Hong Kong, has apparently taken the exertion well.

"For whatever reason, he looks to have copped the run. He is five months older than when he was racing last time, so he may have toughened up physically in that time," Size (pictured) said. "He did well on Sunday night, again ate well on Monday and I rode him this morning and he felt well, bright, alert and full of energy. I tend to be a bit of a worrier about the horses but I can say I'm not concerned about Danacourt's well being and, unless something changes between now and Sunday, he will run in the Champions Mile."

That news adds spice to what is already a stimulating Champions Mile, and throws in some additional competition for John Moore, who looks likely to dominate the event, with Joyful Winner, Art Trader and Sunny Sing. With Joyful Winner - already a Group One winner in the Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup - likely to receive an invitation to the Yasuda Kinen, it seems just as likely that any horse which defeats him on Sunday would also become a candidate.

Tony Cruz quinellaed the race 12 months ago with Bullish Luck and Silent Witness, who were both subsequently asked to run in Japan along with Champions Mile third place-getter Bowman's Crossing.

The owners of any horse winning the Champions Mile-Yasuda Kinen double would win a US$1 million bonus on top of the US$2.9 million prize for the two races.

[imaufo]

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Beadman agrees to partner Joyful Winner in Japan

'I'm very excited to be going to the Yasuda Kinen and I think we've got a great chance to win it for Hong Kong,' says Moore after booking big-race jockey from Down Under

MURRAY BELL



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John Moore has played a masterstroke in his bid to win next month's Yasuda Kinen in Tokyo, announcing yesterday that he had booked champion Australian jockey Darren Beadman for Joyful Winner.

Beadman, Sydney's record-breaking rider, is the consummate big-occasion player and has won just about every "major" in his homeland, including two Melbourne Cups and a raft of races on champion Octagonal and his son Lonhro.

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Last week, Moore expressed his disappointment in Shane Dye's riding of Joyful Winner when third behind Bullish Luck in the Group One Champions Mile at Sha Tin and said the New Zealander would not be invited to accompany Joyful Winner in Tokyo.

"I knew Christophe [Soumillon] was unlikely to be available because it's French Derby day at Chantilly, and then I thought of Darren Beadman," Moore explained.

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Riding high: Christophe Soumillon savours the moment after winning the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe

"So I called Darren up and asked if he thought John Hawkes would mind if I borrowed him for one weekend. He rang Hawkesy, who apparently said, `Go on, go to Tokyo and enjoy yourself'.

"So it's all confirmed. He'll be there early to ride Joyful Winner in his final gallop on the Thursday [June 1]," Moore added.

The trainer said Joyful Winner had pulled up in great order after the Champions Mile and was showing no signs of fatigue at the back end of a long season.

"Probably because of the bad luck he had in the race, he didn't have a tough run and that's probably the reason he's pulled up so well," Moore said.

"I think he's going to have a great chance in the race. Christophe told me this horse has a faster turn of foot than Bullish Luck, and you saw what Bullish Luck did to them in the Champions Mile.

"I'm very excited to be going to the Yasuda Kinen and I think we've got a great chance to win it for Hong Kong."

Douglas Whyte said last night he would be partnering Danacourt, on the assumption that trainer John Size and owner Chow Kay-yui accepted the Japan Racing Association's invitation. "As I understand it, they haven't made a final decision but assuming he does go, yes, I'll be riding him," Whyte said.

Tony Cruz has decided against sending Hong Kong's fallen idol Silent Witness and will now rely solely on Bullish Luck, to be ridden by Brett Prebble.

Silent Witness will now enjoy a summer holiday and be prepared for the International Mile Trial in November and the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Mile in December.

Weichong Marwing, who will ride in today's S$3 million ($14.8 million) Singapore Airlines International Cup at Kranji racecourse, left Sha Tin last night with a two-meeting suspension to add to the one he received at Happy Valley on Wednesday night.

Marwing was found guilty of careless riding on Sambuca in the ATV Cup. He was found to have shifted his ground near the 200 metres when not clear and deemed responsible for the interference that caused hot favourite Hello Pretty to be checked.

As this was Marwing's second careless riding suspension, he was also fined $80,000, which stewards say represents two extra race meetings. With the two-meeting stretch he received last Wednesday night, the South African must now sit out the next four race meetings.


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