After starting brilliantly from barrier four in steady rain, Hong Kong\u2019s reigning Horse of the Year settled second behind Bottomuptogether, who surged from the 800m to the 400m in 21.33s to string out the field, ultimately playing into Purton\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt went fairly smoothly. If I could have had that run pre-race, I would have taken it,\u201d Purton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got into a nice spot and Beauty Waves on my inside got fired up a little bit and got keen and Alexis (Badel) was looking to edge out, so I just felt my horse back on the bit and travelling, thinking about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then Bottomsuptogether went and it had my bloke having to chase him midrace, which was not what I wanted. I wanted to have him travelling within himself but what it did \u2013 because he\u2019d used a bit more energy midrace \u2013 he actually changed his leg for the first time in a long time when he came into the straight. Hopefully it\u2019s taught him something.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he did that, I thought \u2018game over\u2019 and away he went.\u201d<\/p>\n
After equalling the weight-carrying record he set last season in the same race, Ka Ying Rising is the first horse to win the HKSAR Chief Executive\u2019s Cup twice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been saying privately that we think he\u2019s better than last year and I think that showed \u2013 the time he ran, the way he did it, the weight he carried. He\u2019s bigger and stronger and probably better,\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always physically been a backward-looking horse and now I think he looks like a complete sprinter. So, yeah, he\u2019s the best I\u2019ve had.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worry with this \u2018prep\u2019 was running with 135 (lb) at the start, but I didn\u2019t want to go six months between runs, first-up in an Everest. Now I know we\u2019ve got him there, we just maintain him and he holds form for a long time this horse. That\u2019s why he\u2019s a champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a pretty good traveller and I\u2019m very confident travellng him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the evening former NZ trainer Jamie Richards started the Hong Kong racing season in perfect style with two wins, giving him important momentum heading into the spring.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LOVERACING.NZ News Desk <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After starting brilliantly from barrier four in steady rain, Hong Kong\u2019s reigning Horse of the Year settled second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[806,1040,12812,2046,6028,3937,12817,12823,12813,4377,12811,6628,12822,78,12815,194,12814,111,139,69,7566,12816,12821,12819,213,12824,12810,12825,12820,12818],"class_list":{"0":"post-10299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-as","9":"tag-bid","10":"tag-bolts","11":"tag-career","12":"tag-champion","13":"tag-chief","14":"tag-declared","15":"tag-equalbest","16":"tag-everest","17":"tag-executives","18":"tag-hero","19":"tag-historic","20":"tag-hksar","21":"tag-in","22":"tag-jockey","23":"tag-kiwi","24":"tag-looms","25":"tag-new-zealand","26":"tag-newzealand","27":"tag-nz","28":"tag-outstanding","29":"tag-purton","30":"tag-risings","31":"tag-sensation","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-sprinters","34":"tag-sprinting","35":"tag-stunning","36":"tag-ying","37":"tag-zealandbred"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}