It was business as usual for Ka Ying Rising, the world’s top-rated sprinter and Hong Kong\u2019s reigning Horse of the Year, who strode confidently through another eye-catching gate trial Saturday at Sha Tin ahead of his highly anticipated return to racing next weekend at the 2025-’26 season opener.<\/p>\n
A winner of his past 12 consecutive races, headlined by four at Group 1 level, trainer David Hayes\u2019 record-breaking sprinter clocked an unforced of :56.3 (13.3, 21.0, 22.0) for 1,000 meters (about five furlongs) on turf by two lengths in first place as he prepares to defend his win in Chief Executive\u2019s Cup Handicap at six furlongs on Sunday week.<\/p>\n
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Two-time Hong Kong Champion Trainer (1997-’98 & 1998-’99) Hayes said: \u201cPleasure to watch. He\u2019s so fluent, his action is perfect and, the most important thing, he\u2019s mentally more mature this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year if you watch his trials, he was jumpy and out of his skin a bit \u2013 too fresh. This year he\u2019s walking around how you want them to walk around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now a 5-year-old, Ka Ying Rising will enter quarantine in Hong Kong for a fortnight straight after his first-up run in the HKSAR Chief Executive\u2019s Cup as he prepares to fly to Sydney, Australia for his shot at the AU$20-million The Everest (G1) going six furlongs at Royal Randwick.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo run :56.3s with his eyes shut is pretty impressive. He\u2019s a more mature horse now, so he\u2019s always going to be heavier (body weight) than last year,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cHe\u2019ll come down with this trial, but I want a bit of wriggle room for travelling and, I think by Everest time we should have him at around 1,150 (pounds) \u2013 which is about 15 pounds heavier than last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Zac Purton was aboard Ka Ying Rising as he crossed the line to the sound of a light cheer from the crowd in attendance at Saturday\u2019s Owners Carnival. Along with the mantle as Hong Kong Horse of the Year last season, freakish talent Ka Ying Rising was also acclaimed Hong Kong Champion Sprinter (2024-’25) and Hong Kong Champion Four-Year-Old (2024-’25).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (Zac) was very happy. He was thrilled with his manners behind the gates. He changed legs, which is the only criticism Zac has of him, he never changes legs. But when you don\u2019t get under pressure, you don\u2019t have to change legs. You change legs when you\u2019re under pressure. Today, he thinks he changed legs \u2013 from Zac\u2019s point of view,\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n
Prior to Saturday’s trial session, James Orman and Derek Leung were celebrated as Hong Kong\u2019s fastest on foot. The two riders landed the 2025=’26 Jockeys\u2019 Sprint in a bunched finish ahead of Brenton Avdulla and Ellis Wong (second), while Hugh Bowman and Jerry Chau were close-up in third position.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported by Paulick Report<\/a> on Aug 30, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Paulick Report as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was business as usual for Ka Ying Rising, the world’s top-rated sprinter and Hong Kong\u2019s reigning Horse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[133870,3749,133871,101200,1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-386128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-david-hayes","9":"tag-hong-kong","10":"tag-hong-kong-champion-sprinter","11":"tag-ka-ying-rising","12":"tag-racing","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115120704502710646","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386128","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=386128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}