Seoul\u2019s unforgiving sand proved too much for Hong Kong\u2019s three runners in the Korea Sprint, as Japan\u2019s Dragon Welds and American Stage fought out the finish and delivered Japan a fifth victory in the International Group 3 contest.<\/p>\n
Danny Shum\u2019s Gorgeous Win fared best of the Hong Kong trio in fifth, while defending champion Self Improvement and Tony Cruz\u2019s Beauty Waves finished 14th and 15th, respectively.<\/p>\n
Gorgeous Win had to overcome the outside barrier in gate 16, but Richard Kingscote was able to work across and secure the best position of the three Hong Kong runners, settling fifth in the run.<\/p>\n
Self Improvement, drawn nine, and Beauty Waves, drawn 13, were unable to show the same early pace. Both dropped towards the rear soon after the start and were left with difficult tasks on Seoul\u2019s deep sand.<\/p>\n
\u201cGorgeous Win ran a really good race and I think Richard [Kingscote] did a good job. He rode the perfect race,\u201d Shum told The Standard. \u201cFrom draw 16, to find the position he did, two deep, that was amazing. Good job.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, he lost his left-fore shoe. Otherwise, I think he would have been closer in the finish, but I\u2019m still very proud of the performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really appreciate my team, the work rider Jay, the mafoo Chong and the farrier. They all worked really hard. I really appreciate my team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manfred Man\u2019s assistant trainer Wing Ip felt the difference between this year\u2019s surface and last year\u2019s rain-affected track was a factor in Self Improvement\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cDylan [Mo Hin-Tung] came back and said the ground today was a bit soft,\u201d Wing said. \u201cSelf Improvement jumped just okay today, and he tried to get him into a good position, but the inside horses were really fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the kickback became really bad. That\u2019s why the horse lost his balance for a little bit, but once he re-balanced, it was too hard work to make ground. He just grinded away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz pointed to a similar challenge for Beauty Waves but was not looking for excuses after the disappointing finish. The six-year-old slipped as he left the gates, according to jockey Jerry Chau Chun-lok.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to Jerry, he said, \u2018I wanted to jump fast, but he slipped, and when he slipped, that\u2019s why he was slow out,\u2019\u201d Cruz said. \u201cAnd he couldn\u2019t get going after and he was out of the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz also highlighted the strength of the Japanese challenge on Seoul\u2019s sand, with Dragon Welds and American Stage breaking away from the field turning for home before engaging in a fierce battle down the straight.<\/p>\n
Ridden by Keita Tosaki, Dragon Welds took control inside the final 200 meters to defeat Ryusei Sakai\u2019s mount American Stage by two lengths, with the Japanese pair confirming their country\u2019s dominance in the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seoul\u2019s unforgiving sand proved too much for Hong Kong\u2019s three runners in the Korea Sprint, as Japan\u2019s Dragon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1523,134,2329,2333,2328,2336,2331,2330,2332,2334,112,2335,1583,2327,2326,207],"class_list":["post-144881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seoul","tag-breaking-news","tag-china","tag-english-daily","tag-finance","tag-free-newspaper","tag-headlines","tag-hong-kong-media","tag-hong-kong-news","tag-hong-kong-news-media","tag-latest-news","tag-seoul","tag-sing-tao","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-the-standard","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}