Who: Many of the world’s best sprinters including several bred, or owned, in New Zealand.
The rest: Part of the TAB’s “Greatest day on the Punt” also featuring Livamol
Day at Ellerslie and the Caulfield Cup in Melbourne.
New Zealand-bred sprinting star Ka Ying Rising has ended a wild 48 hours of speculation about his participation in the A$20 million ($22.76m) Everest with a pleasing trackwork gallop in Sydney.
The red-hot favourite for Saturday’s mammoth slot race sprint at Randwick pleased trainer David Hayes with his work at Canterbury, suggesting he has come on nicely since his much-analysed third in a Randwick trial last Tuesday.
But while Ka Ying Rising had been the centre of plenty of hyperbolic speculation about his fitness since the trial last week, that went into overdrive on the weekend fuelled by fake social media reports.
Fake X excites punters
A fake X (formerly Twitter) account set up two weeks ago under the name of a well-known Sydney racing journalist was active on Sunday suggesting Ka Ying Rising had a hind leg injury and was going to be scratched from the Everest on Monday.
The account changed its username several times throughout Sunday, even briefly to a fake “Miguel Guerin” account.
Yes, there are real Miguel Guerins in the world but no, they probably don’t have the inside word on Ka Ying Rising, fake or not.
What followed was an extraordinary few hours in which a significant number of punters who had seen the fake tweets either backed other runners in the Everest market or laid him (basically betting on him to lose or not start) on betting exchange Betfair.
That meant Ka Ying Rising, whose price had floated around between $1.60 and $1.80 to win the Everest for the last month, blew out to as much as $2.80 on Betfair while the Australian TAB went as far as suspending betting on the Everest.
All of this while Ka Ying Rising was relaxing, sound and healthy, in his stable in Sydney.
Hoax frustrates Hayes
Trainer David Hayes was initially bemused by the hoax but several hours and about 20 phone calls later was fed up with the nonsense.
He told media he had to ring the Hong Kong Jockey Club, who own the slot Ka Ying Rising will race on this Saturday, to assure them everything was fine with their local superstar.
But actions speak louder than words and Ka Ying Rising, who was sold to his Hong Kong owners after winning a trial in New Zealand, looked a happy horse during his scheduled public track work at the Canterbury in Sydney on Monday morning.
Hayes says Ka Ying Rising has tightened up since last Tuesday’s trial and his recovery was quicker after Monday morning’s work and he should be spot on for Saturday’s 1200m dash for the huge cash.
Ka Ying Rising was by Monday back to about $1.80 with bookmakers and those keyboard-happy punters who laid him on Betfair during Sunday’s frenetic puntfest of misinformation now face a nervous wait until Saturday.
The next step to the Everest comes at 10pm (NZ time) on Tuesday night when the barrier draw will be held in Sydney. It will screen live on Trackside in New Zealand.
Jockey Zac Purton told the Herald last week he wants a handy barrier draw for Ka Ying Rising, who has good early speed and could even shorten again in the market if he draws somewhere around barriers 3 to 6.
Mazu became the final equine piece of the Everest puzzle when he was signed up to the Yulong slot to replace their injured initial runner Private Harry.
Chop and change
New Zealand racing’s week of chop and change got more of the latter on Monday when the Matamata meeting scheduled for Wednesday was moved to Friday due to a poor forecast.
That meeting will host the $80,000 Team Wealleans Matamata Cup, which had already been transferred from the partially abandoned meeting at Matamata on October 4.
That means there will be black type thoroughbred action three days in a row in the North Island starting at Ōtaki on Thursday and ending with Ellerslie on Saturday.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.