![\"Ka](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Ka-Ying-Centenary-HKJC-1024x651.jpg\")
KA YING RISING, ZAC PURTON \/\/ G1 Centenary Sprint Cup \/\/ Sha Tin \/\/\/ 2026 \/\/\/\/ Photo by HKJC<\/p>\n\u201cIt was like someone switched off the noise,\u201d Gerald Mosse tells Idol Horse.<\/p>\n
The moment has been replayed and recalled countless times in the almost 21 years since the unthinkable happened: the great Silent Witness was beaten, his winning streak halted unexpectedly at 17.<\/p>\n
After an ear-battering roar that lasted the length of time it took Hong Kong\u2019s champion to lead the field the length of the Sha Tin finishing straight, the crowd was numbed. Mosse had driven Bullish Luck past Hong Kong\u2019s great hero to a last ditch, short-head upset in the 2005 Champions Mile.<\/p>\n
\u201cBullish Luck drives up, beats the champion!\u201d race caller David Rafael told the world, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s a photo. I hope I\u2019m wrong, but I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It took three or four strides after the horses passed the winning post for the crowd to realise what had happened, then, \u201cNo more noise,\u201d Mosse says. \u201cThat\u2019s what I remember, that\u2019s what I will remember all my life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was \u2026 wow,\u201d the Frenchman continues. \u201cNo one could expect that. So, all the crowd were screaming to push the hot favourite to win, and then when I passed him, just after the winning post, no one was making any sound.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Price of Price Bloodstock, the man who sourced Silent Witness for the Hong Kong market and sold him to run in owner Archie da Silva\u2019s black with green cross-belt silks, gives a short, dry laugh as he is reminded of the moment and says, \u201cI\u2019ve only just got over that,\u201d and there\u2019s truth in his throwaway mirth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt went quiet, it went pretty quiet,\u201d Price recalls. \u201cPinged him right on the line. It was like, wow, he\u2019s got beat, hasn\u2019t he? It was sickening on that front.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man who rode Silent Witness, Felix Coetzee, told Michael Cox in May 2015, \u201cIt was like it all rested in my gut at that time. I just felt pale, I felt weak \u2026 It was a horrible, horrible feeling. I took the saddle off, gave him a pat, and walked away like a broken person.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the expectation, the promo, the hype, the worldwide media attention, interviews with the likes of CNN and Time magazine, it wasn\u2019t supposed to be that way. But Silent Witness\u2019s defeat is a famous example of the truism that anything can happen in sport once the protagonists get to the business of competing: the talking stops and even \u2018good things\u2019 at odds of 1.2 can be beaten.<\/p>\n
KA YING RISING, ZAC PURTON \/\/ G1 Centenary Sprint Cup \/\/ Sha Tin \/\/\/ 2026 \/\/\/\/ Photo by HKJC<\/p>\n
Ka Ying Rising is the latest good thing. Trainer David Hayes\u2019s exceptional sprinter equalled Silent Witness\u2019s 17-win streak in the G1 Centenary Sprint Cup last start, and on Sunday, in the G1 Queen\u2019s Silver Jubilee Cup, he is expected to break into clear ground with a new Hong Kong record of 18 straight wins.<\/p>\n
But Ka Ying Rising\u2019s story is different, he has beaten his upcoming rivals with improbable ease each time he has raced in Hong Kong this season and crucially he is already a proven winner at the 1400m distance.<\/p>\n
When Silent Witness went to the Champions Mile on that mid-May day, he was stepping into the unknown against high-calibre milers. His prowess was at 1000m and 1200m, he had stretched out and proven himself at 1400m, but he had never raced at 1600m.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tony Cruz \u2013 Hong Kong racing\u2019s greatest son \u2013 was Silent Witness\u2019 trainer and the former champion jockey says he had reservations about stretching out to the mile and expressed those in private conversations between the connections. He also trained Bullish Luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t believe he was a miler,\u201d Cruz tells Idol Horse. \u201cBut there was insistence and it was decided that we run him at a mile, I said, he\u2019s not a miler. I knew there was danger at the mile, and I had the other horse, Bullish Luck, who was a champion horse at a mile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the lure was a lucrative bonus in place at the time for any horse that could win the Champions Mile and the Yasuda Kinen in Japan three weeks later. That was the aim. Cruz, nine seasons into his training career and familiar with Hong Kong\u2019s cutthroat racing environment, says he sought and received assurances that he would not carry blame if the champion was defeated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mile plan was always there,\u201d Price recalls. \u201cThere was always a chance of being a touch vulnerable but with a horse that good in Hong Kong, it\u2019s not as though you can run them that often, so it seemed the right call at the time to run him and unfortunately it created the loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silent Witness was drawn in gate one; Bullish Luck was in gate two. The champ broke swiftly under Coetzee, as expected, and rolled to the lead, as was his wont. Bullish Luck was more slowly away and was soon well back, about 10 lengths off, sticking close to the fence.<\/p>\n
The tempo was strong, with The Duke and Ain\u2019t Here harrying up outside Silent Witness\u2019s powerful quarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very simple,\u201d Mosse says, \u201cwhen we go to the races to compete, we always try to win. Silent Witness was everyone\u2019s favourite, the people\u2019s horse, and I was expecting to compete, not really to be able to beat him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy horse had pretty solid form as well, but Silent Witness was an unbeaten horse. I remember Tony asked me to ride Bullish Luck how he was usually ridden, coming outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
But starting from the inside, with anticipation of a hot tempo likely to be happening ahead, Mosse made a tactical decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just thinking, if I\u2019m going to do what he asked me to do, go around everybody, there is no way for me to get him,\u201d he says, \u201cso I took the shortcut, I saved every centimetre, and then I\u2019ve been lucky to get through and I just tried to come and get him on the line. I knew with 150 metres remaining that I would win, so it was really something special.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result brought mixed emotions for Mosse and especially for Cruz.<\/p>\n
\u201cTony was still happy because he still got the winner, but not with the one he was expecting,\u201d Mosse recalls. \u201cIn the happiness of that moment, of winning the Group 1 like that, you don\u2019t really think too much about the champion getting beat. You\u2019re somewhat proud to be able to beat the superstar, but at the same time, I felt a bit sad because he had those 17 wins in a row.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou compete to win, so when you beat the champion like that, of course, some people will be extremely proud to beat \u2018The King of Hong Kong\u2019 and I was not: I really like to see champions keep winning, and I think that is something Hong Kong people like to see as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Felix](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Silent-witness-2005-Centenary-Sprint-Cup-1024x683.jpg\")
SILENT WITNESS, FELIX COETZEE \/ Sha Tin \/\/ Photo by HKJC<\/p>\n
![\"Gerald](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-2-1024x683.png\")
BULLISH LUCK, GERALD MOSSE \/ G1 Champions Mile \/\/ Sha Tin \/\/\/ 2005 \/\/\/\/ Photo by HKJC<\/p>\n
Despite the narrow loss, Silent Witness continued on to Tokyo and the Yasuda Kinen, Japan\u2019s great summer mile race.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was funny because from there he still went to Japan to run in the Yasuda Kinen,\u201d Price says. \u201cSo, it wasn\u2019t as though it was considered to be, you know, like go back to sprinting. It was push on. The discussion, I think, was more about he\u2019ll do that and then he\u2019ll go to Japan, so I mean full credit, he got beaten and they still went.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz looks back on that as \u201ca big mistake,\u201d though because \u201che ran third, the race was too long for him.\u201d But again, the champ was beaten only a neck, finished one place in front of Bullish Luck, and lost no respect in that second defeat.<\/p>\n
Price, though, points out that Silent Witness\u2019s Yasuda Kinen run \u201cwas outstanding,\u201d that his defeats were races seven and eight that season \u2013 he only ever raced five or six times in his other campaigns \u2013 and observes of the Yasuda Kinen, \u201cit was almost like the horse was looking at the board at the end of the straight; in the run, you could sort of see his ears up and he seemed to lose concentration and Felix didn\u2019t seem to sort of punish him and he only narrowly got beaten.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, you could never say that he couldn\u2019t run a mile when he was narrowly beaten in two high class mile contests,\u201d Price adds, \u201cbut his absolute A-grade strength was up to 1400 metres.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silent Witness was taken back to 1200m and back to Japan for his next race, the G1 Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama that October. He was brilliant, notching his 18th career win at his 20th start and it seemed that he was ripe for another winning streak. But things took an unexpected turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that race they had to do a swab test up the nostril to check if he\u2019s bringing any virus back to Hong Kong,\u201d Cruz recalls ruefully. \u201cBut every time they tried to swab him, he reared up, so they sedated the horse twice, once in quarantine when he went in and then leaving the quarantine with another sedation, and I believe that was the downfall of Silent Witness.\u201d<\/p>\n
He takes the view that, \u201cOnce you sedate a horse, you take their guard down, the immune system against infections and viruses. He came out and was a different looking horse, his coat changed, his hair was on end, he couldn\u2019t gallop, he had a lot of mucus after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silent Witness was scratched from his intended next start that November and failed to win again in nine races up to his retirement in 2007.<\/p>\n
But his legacy is epic. He was the horse that came along at one of Hong Kong\u2019s lowest ebbs, as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) ravaged the city through 2003 into 2004, bringing fear and killing almost 300 people at a fatality rate of 17 percent.<\/p>\n
That puts Silent Witness on a different pedestal to Ka Ying Rising. He wasn\u2019t just a champion racehorse, he was a folk hero.<\/p>\n
\u201cSilent Witness brought joy and happiness, he made Hong Kong proud at the time of SARS, that\u2019s why he was called \u2018The Spirit of Hong Kong,\u2019\u201d Cruz says. \u201cHe came out like a champion and had 17 straight wins and he was a superstar, the people loved him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Jockey Club put up a giant TV screen in Central so people could see him winning. CNN came along and interviewed us with the horse in the paddock for an hour and a half, and the horse didn\u2019t move, he seemed to love the attention. Time magazine put him on the cover!<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the same this time,\u201d Cruz adds.<\/p>\n
Price highlights another difference: \u201cThe part of the story that we\u2019re all hanging our hat on is that Silent Witness\u2019s unbeaten streak was from the start, so we\u2019re always keen to remind Hayesy (Ka Ying Rising\u2019s trainer, David Hayes) that Wunderbar beat Ka Ying Rising twice before he got his streak going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ribbing aside, no one begrudges Ka Ying Rising. Price, Cruz and Mosse are united in their admiration for the horse that is making his own legacy as one of the greatest sprinters of all time.<\/p>\n
\u201cKa Ying Rising is an all-time champion too and nothing can beat him right now,\u201d Cruz says. \u201cI think he will keep on winning for a long time to come because there\u2019s nothing around to beat him and I wish them all the best because he\u2019s an incredible horse.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Ka Ying Rising went through his final preparations for his shot at win 18, Silent Witness \u2013 now 26 years old and a longtime resident of Living Legends \u2013 was out on the streets of Melbourne, bringing his celebrity to the Lunar New Year celebrations in Chinatown.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bullish Luck, 27 years old now, is at Living Legends, too. He went on to win the Champions Mile again in 2006 when he completed the double Silent Witness could not, winning the Yasuda Kinen, this time under Brett Prebble.<\/p>\n
The now aged \u2018Ageless Warrior\u2019 as he was known in his later racing days, will always be remembered most for that day at Sha Tin when he downed a legend under what Price describes as \u201can extraordinarily good ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mosse reflects on Bullish Luck and Silent Witness on that famous day, then brings his thoughts back to the now of Ka Ying Rising and his sporting instincts hold true.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the champion keeps showing up, carrying the flag, and keeps winning, he deserves to carry on if he can,\u201d Mosse adds. \u201cI like to see champions keep winning.\u201d \u220e<\/p>\n
![\"KYR](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/KYR-aggressive-crop-1024x580.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Michael Cox<\/p>\n
Longevity And Legacy: Hayes On Ka Ying Rising In 2026 And Beyond<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n David Morgan<\/p>\n Hail Hong Kong\u2019s Three Great Sprint Kings<\/p>\n![\"SprintKings\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/SprintKings-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\n