Dual Grade 2-winning son of Deep Impact looking to add second Group 1 to CV
Group 1 winner Glory Vase (Deep Impact) will be out to add a second Hong Kong Group 1 to his CV when he lines up in the Queen Elizabeth II Cup (Gr 1, 2000m) at Sha Tin on Sunday.
A winner of two Grade 2s in his native Japan, the son of Deep Impact (Sunday Silence) landed his first top-level race when he took out the Hong Kong Case (Gr 1, 2400m) in December 2019 and trainer Tomohito Ozeki could not be happier with the six-year-old ahead of Sunday’s race.
“The horse is in great condition. It’s the second time we’ve come to Hong Kong and it’s made a difference to how he’s travelled and settled in. He’s very relaxed at the moment,” Ozeki said.
“He lost less condition in the travel than he did last time, so he’s a happy horse and everything is on track.
“I have enormous respect for the quality of the other horses in the race. I’m very confident in my own horse that he has what it takes to get a win. So, I’m confident of running well against the other horses and confident of getting a result.
“A lot of his runs have been over further distances, two starts back, he ran very well in a high-paced Japan Cup over 2400 metres. Even though it was a strong pace in that race, he was able to get into a relatively good position – a forward position – and run well (finishing fifth behind Almond Eye, Contrail and Daring Tact).
“Since then, last start was the first time over 2000 metres for a while. The track condition wasn’t fantastic that day. They had rain and that made it unsuitable for the horse, but we were still very happy with the run.
“So, off the back of that last-start 2000 metres race, the thoughts were there to aim for this race. He’s quite comfortable with this trip.”
