Sacred Capital defied an interrupted preparation and the extreme outside barrier to run away with the 28th running of the SJM Macau Derby at Taipa on July 27, giving trainer Joe Lau his third victory in the coveted race.
Exploding out the gates under jockey Peter Ho, Sacred Capital easily cleared the speed inside to be sitting outside the leader Trillion King as the field rushed out of the straight the first time.
Ho ended up in the box seat third the rails before easing out three deep at the top of the straight. Given full rein the magnificent looking son of O'Reilly burst away from his rivals to win easily by two lengths from Eclair Lightning (Ruan Maia), with Big Alloy (Luis Corrales) running on well from the back for third.
The win gave master conditioner Joe Lau his third Macau Derby win, having won in 2015 with The Alfonso under Nash Rawiller and with Sacred Man and Zac Purton in 2017.
Sacred Capital's time of 1.47.0 for the 1800m equalled the race record of his stable mate The Alfonso. Sacred Capital, like The Alfonso and Sacred Man, is raced in partnership by Chen Ching Lung and Raffles Racing supremo Dato K S Yap.
A relieved Joe Lau stated that Sacred Capital's preparation for the race had not gone smoothly.
"You map out your plan and mostly follow it through to the daybut this time we had a lot things come against us," Lau said.
"He got a bad stone bruise and the abscess had to be drained and that set us back a few weeks.
"We missed the lead up races we were looking at, and I had to run him two weeks straight over 1200m and 1500m to get him fit enough for this race.
"That's not something I generally do. And then as if we didn't have enough pressure we drew the extreme outside gate in a field of 14 runners.
"Thankfully it's all worked out well. He is just a real nice horse.
"Perhaps we'll look at the Macau Gold Cup at the end of August then we'll see what's coming up in the new season."
Lau joins Alan Tam as the two most successful trainers in the history of the Macau Derby with three wins each.
Tam won his first Derby with Royal Treasure under Frankie Dettori in 2002, again the following year with Analyst ridden by Cedric Segeon with Elderly Paradise giving him his third victory in 2012 under Olivier Doleuze.
Duke Da Vega defied the odds to pick up his first black type race in Sunday's G1 Star Of The Sand Stakes over 1600 metres.
With Frenchman Stephane Ladjadj in the saddle, Duke Da Vega shrugged off a 25 pounds deficit in the ratings on the equal weights scale to power home over the top of Mujaan (Peter Ho).
He is prepared by the joint stable of Tommy Tse and Louis Ho who are enjoying a sparkling season with their small team of 20 horses.
Duke Da Vega made it win number seven in Macau with six more placed efforts for prize money close to $1.8 million for The Golden Pistols racing syndicate.
But perhaps the biggest claim to fame for the son of Lope De Vega was his victory in a Doomben maiden over a horse called Ted; who later went on to race in Hong Kong as Ping Hai Star and win the 2018 Hong Kong Derby.
The win took Tse and Ho to 33 wins for the season and 41 placed efforts from only 194 runners, the least amount of starters among trainers in the top six.
Their win strike is the highest of any stable this season at 17% with their place rate running at 38% and over $HK7.4 million won in stakes money.
Stephane Ladjadj only arrived in the enclave in May and has aspirations to ride in Macau on a more permanent basis.
Ladjadj made it a double when he picked up the Class 5 & 6 over 1510 metres on Broadus for trainer Peter Leyshan.
Japanese rider Kakeru Mizuno has formed a great rapport with the speedy sprinter Fasuba with the combination scoring another superb win in Saturday's Class 1 & 2 over 1050 metres on the sand.
Mizuno scored a surprise win in the G2 Summer Trophy over 1350m on Fasuba on June 29 at a distance that had always been beyond his reach.
On Saturday he was back to his pet distance of 1050m.
Trainer Alan Tam has done a fine job with Fasuba since taking the 5YO from James Moore, winning four races and placing on three occasions from nine starts.
