Sha Tin racecourse was a project in a state of conceptual development when
Freddie Head first visited Hong Kong to compete alongside fellow riding greats
Lester Piggott and Pat Eddery in the International Jockeys’ Challenge. Those
days are the stuff of legend among local race fans and on Sunday, Head hopes his
star mare Moonlight Cloud will etch her own name in Hong Kong racing folklore
with victory in the Hong Kong Mile, a race that he hopes will not be her
swansong.
“Her future depends on Sunday,” said Head, after watching his Hong Kong Mile
favorite stretch out over on the Sha Tin all-weather track Wednesday morning.
The French mare worked on the all-weather, covering 800 meters in an easy
:57.80.
“I liked her piece of work this morning over the dirt track, which rode a bit
softer than the previous days, according to the mare’s rider, Philippe Coppin,”
Head said. “Moonlight Cloud was very cautious, but she gave me the impression
that she’s at her best for Sunday’s race. I don’t think that she will have to
gallop over the turf this week. She’s good. I hope that she won’t let us down on
Sunday.
“This track had not been built the first time I came to ride over here, some
30 or 40 years ago,” said Head, clearly amused at the thought. “We were touring
the southern hemisphere with the likes of Piggott and Eddery. Happy Valley is
not what it stands for now. It was only a minor track to us back then, but it
was good fun too. Today, Hong Kong racing is competing in an altogether
different league!”
A six-time French champion jockey in his day, Head admitted that he is very
excited to return to Happy Valley on Wednesday night, to witness the
International Jockeys’ Championship, but moreover is he anticipating his
five-year-old super mare Moonlight Cloud’s tilt at the Hong Kong Mile.
“This could be her last race,” remarked the trainer, who also oversaw the
career of another great mare, the triple Breeders’ Cup Mile heroine Goldikova.
“Her future hangs on Sunday’s race. As a trainer, I’d love to have her another
season but the decision is up to George Strawbridge, who bred and owns her. He’s
a sportsman but the mare will be six years old soon and as a breeder, surely he
can’t wait to take her to stud. You don’t want her to race one time too many. It
is the kind of thing that you cannot really anticipate. One day, they lose it,
the will to win. Moonlight Cloud has had an easier career than Goldikova though.
She never had to compete with the likes of Zarkava, so who knows?”
Moonlight Cloud has dazzled European racing with some sensational
performances that have earned her six Group 1 wins, and none has been more
impressive than her most recent, a surging last-to-first demolition of her
rivals in the Prix de la Foret at Longchamp in October. She also has two notable
defeats on her record, an arguably unlucky head second to the great Black Caviar
in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes in 2012 and her lackluster eighth when fancied for
that year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile, her only previous venture outside of Europe.
In the wake of that Breeders’ Cup Mile disappointment in California, Head and
Strawbridge decided some time ago that Hong Kong in December was the ideal fit
for the Invincible Spirit mare, who is aiming to go unbeaten in five races this
term. On the form book, she will be hard to beat.
“George Strawbridge decided to send her here rather than another tilt at the
Breeders’ Cup because he figured she would be better off on this racecourse,”
Head said. “The mare has developed year after year since she arrived at my yard
but never as much as last winter oddly enough. She has become stronger but wiser
too and she’s much easier to deal with nowadays.”
Head was pleased this morning with his first view of his stable star since
arriving in Hong Kong.
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