Page 29 - Demo

simon says...
Eastern delights
Simon Rowlands rounds up 2019’s international action which saw Japanese raiders grab a Group 1 treble at Sha Tin
nd Lys Gracieux wipe out her opposition in the Arima Kinen
aTHE FOCUS OF attention in world horseracing after the Arc meeting in France and Champions Day in Britain very clearly switches as elite racing is packed up for another year in Europe.
Following the Breeders’ Cup in the US and the Melbourne Cup in Australia into the breach steps Hong Kong and Japan, and while Australia and the US scale down somewhat, both countries still have significant late-year contests.
Perhaps most significant of all in the US was the Cigar Mile Handicap at Aqueduct in early December, which went readily to Maximum Security (New Year’s Day) with a 128 rating from Timeform, making him highest-rated three-year-old in North America of 2019.
Maximum Security was first past the post in all but one of his eight appearances through the year, four of them Grade 1s, but continues to be remembered as much as anything as the horse who was disqualified in the Kentucky Derby.
More recent events have shown that he is as good at 7f and a mile as he was over 1m2f.
His main rival on Timeform figures for three-year-old supremacy is the 127-rated Omaha Beach (War Front), who
The joint-best US juvenile colts, on
118, are the
Los Alamitos Futurity winner Thousand Words (Pioneerof
The Nile) and Independence Hall
won five of his last six starts – including the 7f Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita over Christmas authoritatively from Roadster. He lost the one that mattered most in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.
Another beaten horse at the Breeders’ Cup stepped forward in the Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos, though anyone who saw how close Bast (Uncle Mo) had raced to a suicidal pace when third in the Juvenile Fillies should not have been surprised that she turned the tables on the runner-up in that Donna Veloce.
Bast followed up in the Santa Ynez Stakes at Santa Anita in January and is now rated 118 by Timeform.
That makes Bast marginally the best of the US juvenile
fillies while the joint-best US juvenile colts, also on 118, are the Los Alamitos Futurity winner Thousand Words (Pioneerof
The Nile) and Independence Hall (Constitution), the runaway winner of the Nashua Stakes at Aqueduct and who has followed up in the Listed Jerome Stakes .
Sha Tin was the venue of the Hong Kong International Races in early December, and there were enough foreign raiders
to justify the “international” element of that title.
There was little to choose between the winners of the four main races on Timeform ratings: Glory Vase (Deep Impact, 127
in the Vase) just shading it over Admire Mars (Daiwa Major,
126, Mile), Beat The Clock (Hinchinbrook, 125, Sprint) and Win Bright (Stay Gold, 124, Cup). That amounts to three wins for the Japanese-trained horses and just one – Beat The Clock’s – for those trained in Hong Kong.
Exultant (Teofilo, 126
overall, 120 here) and Deirdre (Harbinger, 121, 115 here) might have made more of a fist of it in the Vase on another day, Aethero (Sebring, 125 overall, 122 here) seemed not quite to stay a strongly run 1200m in the Sprint and Beauty Generation (Road
To Rock, 132 at the end of 2018, but only 119 in third here) would
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