MASTER EIGHT & LUCKY WITH YOU
1 January 2022
The new year opened in style for Price Bloodstock clients, with a winning double at Sha Tin on Saturday that included a Group 3 quinella in the featured Bauhinia Sprint.
Rising star Master Eight kept his unbeaten run intact after five starts, bursting into stakes company with another win down the straight but needed to pull out all stops to defeat another Price Bloodstock galloper enjoying a stellar season, Sight Success, and this looks sure to be the first of many clashes between the two sprinters.
Joao Moreira gave Master Eight a more conservative ride in the early stages, proving what a versatile young horse he is, but the result was the same as he brought him into the contest in the final 300m to successfully jump from Class 2 to a Group 3 victory.
“He might not be the best horse, the best sprinting horse in Hong Kong – at the moment – but he has everything to be that in the future,” Moreira said. “He’s obviously improving and today was his toughest test and he’s done what we’ve expected him to do – he’s a good horse. We didn’t think he was going to get beaten and he’s proved that we are not wrong about that.”
The gelding’s future now is both exciting and scary, as the handicapper will push him into the absolute top bracket of competition.
“He will go up to a rating over 100, and we need to race him in Group races now – that cannot change, we don’t have a choice,”trainer Frankie Lor said. “But I think there is still more improvement in him after only five races.”
Lucky With You also scored for the Price Bloodstock banner, making his record an impressive 3 wins from 4 starts when he again led throughout over 1200m in Class 3 but trainer David Hayes said he is toying with thoughts of stretching the gelding out to 1600m for the Classic Mile at the end of January.
“It keeps the door open a little bit for the Classic Mile. He will go to a 1400m race in a couple of weeks. If he wins that as well as he did today, then it’s a couple of weeks to the Classic Mile and we might try him there,” Hayes said.
Always in control at the front, using his brilliant speed from the gates, Lucky With You never gave his backers a moment of worry as the warm favourite, and took his earnings past $2.6 million with plenty more to come.