Let’s get ready to rumble: Hong Kong’s latest, greatest rivalry set for Round 3
The Prophet of Probability is already excited about next month’s Stewards’ Cup, the ‘decider’ between California Spangle and Golden Sixty.
Back in the early 1970s two champion boxers fought out a timeless trilogy.
Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier had one of the greatest sporting rivalries ever known, they fought three colossal battles culminating in ‘the Thriller in Manila’ where the victor would be crowned the champion.
On Sunday we witnessed another epic battle between California Spangle and Golden Sixty. This was the second match this season with Golden Sixty taking the spoils in Round 1, and seemingly holding all the cards prior to this event.
The Prophet claimed in a previous article that California Spangle looked like he may not have the ammunition to curtail the great 60. Zac Purton had ridden an almost perfect race last start but still came up short.
But all it takes is for either of these equine champions – or their jockeys – to be slightly off their game and the result can be different. And so it was, in my opinion, on Sunday, and the result turned.
With 400 metres to go in the Longines Hong Kong Mile, the situation looked remarkably similar to the previous bout. The margin from California Spangle to Golden Sixty, was two lengths, last time it was one and a half lengths. Of course, this time California Spangle wasn’t leading. He was chasing his erratic stablemate, Beauty Joy, who Hugh Bowman had chased to the front at the 800m mark despite the pace already being above average. Still, to my eye Golden Sixty was close enough and the result looked a formality.
By the 300m I wasn’t so sure and the vigour with which Vincent Ho had begun to thrust upon his mount showed he was getting concerned as well. With 200m to travel, it looked a forlorn hope, but this is, after all, Golden Sixty, and his will to win brought him close, but it was not enough with a neck to the favour of the younger horse on the line.
After the race, I couldn’t help but think Golden Sixty had not run up to his brilliant sprint of the first contest. Each meeting a racetrack will race slightly different from the last, which means we cannot compare times from one race directly to another. We must first take into account the track speed on the day.
To my calculations Golden Sixty has finished the last 400m about 0.04s slower than the previous race. This equates to somewhere between a head and a neck, the official margin. I believe California Spangle has run up to the level of the previous race and Golden Sixty has performed a fraction below.
Golden Sixty was second-up, and as a seven-year-old might just have felt the first-up run a little more than expected. California Spangle is a four-year-old and had two runs prior to the first battle of the titans. That could have been the difference.