Sha Tin is set to host an historic day in the history of Hong Kong Racing on Sunday where the David Hayes trained Ka Ying Rising will push past Silent Witness’ long standing record winning sequence of seventeen consecutive victories if he salutes, yet again, in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup over 1400m.
Ka Ying Rising will be looking for back-to-back victories in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup with his win in the corresponding fixture twelve months ago marking the only time he has raced over 1400m before, a distance that he coped with his usual aplomb when beating Helios Express by 1.50 lengths.
Master trainer John Size took on Ka Ying Rising with four runners that day … but his stable could do no more than fill the next four places, from second to fifth, behind the champion.
Ka Ying Rising will face nine opponents this time with three of those … Helios Express, Red Lion and Raging Blizzard again coming from the Size yard.
Helios Express will be looking to go one better with Ka Ying Rising, not just from last year’s Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup, but also from their recent clash in the Centenary Sprint Cup a month ago where Ka Ying Rising yet again consigned Helios Express to the runner-up position.
Hugh Bowman, who has been the regular rider of both Helios Express and Red Lion stays on Helios Express with the mount on Red Lion, who comes back in distance from 1600m to 1400m, going to Dylan McMonagle.
The third Size trained runner, Raging Blizzard, for his part, finished 3.50 lengths behind Ka Ying Rising in January’s Centenary Sprint Cup.
Six other runners, from four different stables, help fill the nine horse field but, the truth of the matter is you can talk all you like about Ka Ying Rising’s opponents seemingly without finding any real evidence of why any of them will lower his colours.
It’s racing, so of course that can happen, but if the unthinkable does happen on Sunday, at least David Hayes has removed all possibility of the unfortunate way that Silent Witness’ tremendous run came to an end being repeated here.
Going for his eighteenth win in a row, Silent Witness was beaten by an agonising short-head margin … by no less than his stable companion Bullish Luck.
David Hayes had a close-up view of the action that day as his horse Ain’t Here finished third behind the two Tony Cruz trained runners.
You could say that he has learnt from history not to tempt fate.
Ka Ying Rising will go out as the only Hayes trained runner in the race on Sunday where, all things being equal, it is hard to imagine Hong Kong’s champion not claiming yet another landmark victory of the highest stature, putting his name in the record books with eighteen straight wins, a record that, like that held by Silent Witness for twenty-five years, will last for a very long time.
