Two years ago Blazing Speed defied the startlingly long odds of 25.0 to win the HKG1 Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup (2400m).
Last year, sent off the 2.5 top pick following a dominating win in the G1 Audemars Piguet QEII Cup (2000m), the popular bay went down by a neck in a four-way photo finish.
On Sunday (22 May) at Sha Tin, under regular partner Neil Callan, the seven-year-old will attempt to become the third horse in Hong Kong’s Pattern race era to regain the Champions & Chater Cup, now in its second year as an international Group 1 contest and worth HK$10 million. Oriental Express and Viva Pataca are the others to have reclaimed the prize.
California Memory in 2013 gave Blazing Speed’s handler Tony Cruz a belated first Champions & Chater success as a trainer and now the one-time ace jockey finds himself chasing four in a row thanks to Helene Super Star’s narrow victory 12 months ago. That 2015 edition was one to forget for Blazing Speed despite his brave drive to the finish line.
“Last year he had a troubled run in this race - it didn’t suit him,” said Cruz, recalling his charge over-racing behind a steady tempo that set up a frantic sprint home.
“We know he gets the 2400m - he won this the year before - he’s fit and well and I think he has a chance.”
Blazing Speed heads into the Hong Kong season’s final G1 off a comprehensive defeat in finishing third. That came in last month’s G1 AP QEII Cup when the Dylan Thomas gelding was no match for the runaway Werther on ground officially rated yielding. Werther will re-oppose at the weekend.
“Last time that softer going didn't really suit him,” said Cruz. “He likes it faster and Neil said he ran very well but he’ll be better on a sounder surface. The yielding track really didn't suit him.”
Blazing Speed is Cruz’s sole representative in this year’s race after Helene Super Star was scratched early this week.
“Helene Super Star’s injured so he’s out,” said the trainer. “The vets looked at him, we x-rayed his legs, but we couldn’t find anything - it could be something in his shoulder. That rules out Japan (Takarazuka Kinen), too.”
Another of Cruz’s stable stars will line up in Sunday’s chief support race, the HKG3 Sha Tin Vase (Handicap) over 1200m. Peniaphobia, winner of the G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Sprint at the course and distance in December, will shoulder 130lb in the nine-runner contest.
The five-year-old placed third in the G1 Al Quoz Sprint (1000m) in Dubai at the end of March but was a shadow of his best self upon his Sha Tin return in the G1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize at the course and distance last start. After blazing along at the fore, Peniaphobia faded to 13th of 14 behind the victorious Chautauqua.
“Peniaphobia didn't pull up so good after that last run, he had a little bit of mucus - he’s never had mucus like that after a race,” revealed Cruz.
And ahead of the gelding’s eighth start of the campaign, which began for him on 1 October and has taken in that return trip to Dubai, Cruz believes his sprint star still has the freshness in his legs for one more big effort this term.
“I’m not worried about the travel and things,” he asserted. “You’ll see a different horse this time - a different horse altogether!”
The race also features rising talent Amazing Kids (126lb), a somewhat unlucky fifth in the Chairman’s Sprint Prize, and another Dubai returnee, Not Listenin’tome (133lb), sixth in the same race after suffering interference in the home straight.
