New HK sprint champion emerges

D B Pin has surged late to beat off odds-on favourite Mr Stunning and Joao Moreira ridden Beat The Clock in a big finish to the $10,000,000 Centenary Sprint Cup. In addition to the amazing climax of the 1200m race, there was a dead heat for 2nd place with the first 3 runners to cross the line all under the watch of John Size, in a remarkable feat for the ex-Australian based trainer.

5-year-old D B Pin has been placed an incredible 13 times from 14 starts in his career to date, winning 6 in total. The gelding by Darci Brahma out of Pins ‘n’ Needles easily took care of class 2 and 3 company last year, winning 5 races at Sha Tin and Happy Valley before claiming his maiden group 1 victory in style.

It was a welcome change in fortune for D B Pin, beaten 3 times by Australian-bred Mr Stunning in recent outings, including a heart-filled second placing behind the gun in the Longine’s Hong Kong Sprint in December last year. D B Pin was also placed behind Mr Stunning and Amazing Kids in the Bockh Wealth Mgmt J.C Sprint in November, not having won a race since the 5th of April 2017.

In a luckless run for the highly rated up-and-comer, D B Pin was also a runner up in the 1200m Sha Tin Vase in May last year, defeated only by Lucky Year, beating the very smart Thewizardofoz on that occasion. The John Size trained galloper was again denied a group-class victory in the National Cup, placing once more behind Dashing Fellow and Notlistenin’tome before his only non-podium finish in last year’s Premier Bowl.

D B Pin was all the rave when initially stepping up in class and it was easy to see why, last year winning a 1200m Class 2 Handicap at Sha Tin in a time of 1:07.59, over 2 seconds faster than his time ran in the Centenary Sprint Cup. To put it in perspective, D B Pin’s best time over the distance gaps Australian Champion Redzel’s best of 1:08.36, and also betters Deploy’s Randwick 1200m track record time of 1:08.06.

The future for D B Pin looks promising to say the least with the group 1 victory well overdue for the 5-year-old, after running extremely consistently over the distance with limited success. Not the only runner to watch out of the 2018 Centenary Sprint Cup however, with Hinchinbrook gelding Beat The Clock clocking the fastest final 400m, finishing in 21.53 to run 2nd in a dead heat with Mr Stunning.