Kiwis Claim Nine Out of Ten in Hong Kong

Kiwi-bred gallopers dominated the day at Sha Tin on Saturday, with an impressive nine winners on the ten-race card.

A good-to-yielding track was presented at the picture-perfect Sha Tin racecourse, proving ideal for the New Zealand competitors to claim nine races across all grades from class 2 to class 5, seven of the winners being Karaka graduates, including the feature race winner.

Picking up his fifth win from 17 raceday outings, Special Days (Keeper - Eva's Belle, by Grosvenor) scored by three and a quarter lengths in the Class 2 Castle Peak Bay (1600m) in a time of 1.15.59. This takes the five-year-old's rating to 104 from a season start of 80.

A $160,000 Karaka Ready to Run Sale graduate, Special Days - purchased by Magus Equine from Mana Park and now raced by Tom Brown's Syndicate - has earned in excess of HK$2.4m to date. The gelding, who descends directly from Group 1 Avondale Cup winner Eva Grace (Vice Regal) and leading 1976-77 3YO filly So Fox (Gold Sovereign), is trained in Hong Kong by John Size and was ridden on this occasion by Douglas Whyte.

The only other Class 2 race on the card was also won by New Zealand, with seven-year-old Booming City (Colombia x Sonja Henee) taking the 1200m event for trainer Almond Lee and owner Ling Chiu Shing.

Other NZB winners on the night included: