\u201cZac basically eased down in the same race last year for the last 200m, and he let him run to the line today. He hasn\u2019t been let run to the line many times, and of course he smashed his own record \u2013 and you don\u2019t see that very often \u2013 by [almost] a second. <\/p>\n
Hayes said Ka Ying Rising was 29lb (13kg) heavier (total weight 1172lb or 531kg) than he was when he set last season\u2019s track-record time and was probably 9lb (4kg) above his best winning weight, \u201cso he\u2019s got bigger, stronger and better\u201d.<\/p>\n
Posting one of the most dynamic performances of his mercurial career, Ka Ying Rising improved his overall record to 22 wins and two seconds from 24 starts with prizemoney of HK$160,923,900.<\/p>\n
Conceding most of his rivals 20lb (9kg), Ka Ying Rising forged straight to the lead and ran 23.27s for the first 400m, a searing 21.15s between the 800m and 400m before closing off the final 400m in 21.69s to defeat Copartner Prance (115lb or 52kg) by seven-and-three-quarter lengths. Magic Control (115lb) was third, a further length-and-a-half back.<\/p>\n
Both Hayes and Purton predicted Ka Ying Rising was capable of improvement this season despite finishing last preparation with three record-breaking runs in succession \u2013 running 1m 19.36s in the Group 1 Queen\u2019s Silver Jubilee Cup (1400m), 1m 07.12s in the Group 2 Sprint Cup (1200m) and 1m07.10s in the Group 1 Chairman\u2019s Sprint Prize (1200m).<\/p>\n
The superstar first broke Sacred Kingdom\u2019s longstanding Sha Tin 1200m mark of 1m 07.50s with a gallop of 1m 07.43s in the Group 2 BOCHK Private Banking Jockey Club Sprint in 2024 before lowering it to 1m 07.20s in the 2025 Group 1 Centenary Sprint Cup.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, Hayes believes the Shamexpress gelding is still open to further development after he was allowed to coast over the final 100m on Sunday while lowering the course record by 0.99s.<\/p>\n
Purton agreed: \u201cWe\u2019ve both said that he\u2019s a bigger, stronger horse and that didn\u2019t mean he came back fat. He came back physically more developed and stronger and he\u2019s feeling great. He hasn\u2019t raced since April, so any amount of racing is going to improve him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to stand there and say he\u2019s going to improve lengths off that \u2013 and I said before, he doesn\u2019t need to \u2013 but I\u2019m sure he\u2019s going to pull up better for the run.<\/p>\n
Hayes said he was interested to see what time Ka Ying Rising would run \u201dbecause the track was very fast during the barrier trials here last week” and it was firm out there again on Sunday and they ran \u201ca good time\u201d in the first race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sort of let him really get into his rhythm and I asked him for an effort, so I just wanted to see where we were at and, obviously, we\u2019re in a good place,\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere could be people out there saying he beat nothing but a few of those horses have won 20 or 25 million Hong Kong dollars. They\u2019re well-rated horses. They\u2019re Group horses around the world, but they don\u2019t look it when they race him. They get taken out of their comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ka Ying Rising entered quarantine less than two hours after caning his opposition, and Hayes is confident the sprinter will be fitter this year when he contests The Everest than he was when triumphing in the world\u2019s richest turf race in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had him far too fresh arriving in Sydney. I don\u2019t like to change much when they win like that, so we\u2019ll just continue with a bit more base work and that\u2019s holding him in better stead for when he arrives [in Sydney], mentally. It\u2019s more about mentally not arriving too fresh,\u201d Hayes said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have no fears because he thrives at Canterbury and he did well here [in quarantine].\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 HKJC<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cZac basically eased down in the same race last year for the last 200m, and he let him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1190845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4107],"tags":[93448,14120,140079,200828,44775,322749,104165,94299,204746,168687,53804,9348,288,9641,5772,3577,3120,1071,94913,63156,60638,95595,322748,79,87058,258346,3114,322750,26339,16,15,228351,9642],"class_list":["post-1190844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-1200m","tag-after","tag-better","tag-bigger","tag-david","tag-declared","tag-ever","tag-fastest","tag-fifth","tag-galloper","tag-hayes","tag-horse","tag-horse-racing","tag-new","tag-now","tag-of","tag-one","tag-racing","tag-rated","tag-record","tag-rising","tag-shattered","tag-smashing","tag-sports","tag-sprinter","tag-stronger","tag-time","tag-tins","tag-track","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-ying","tag-zealand"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117228059236589785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1190844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1190845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}