It was a wet and grey morning at Sha Tin today. Many of the locals were pondering when they’d last seen precipitation at this time of the year. However a bit of light rain did not dampen the enthusiasm for track work with a large media contingent present. Quite a few horses went out on the turf, a few of them for a look only.

The Australian horses had a very quiet time of it, as they have all galloped on the turf in the last couple of days. Criterion, Preferment and Lucia Valentina all appear well and relaxed in their work.

McKinnon Stakes winner Gailo Chop had a strong turf gallop and looked good to the eye. Trainer Antoine de Watrigant said: “His skin is in good condition and his weight is right. He worked well today but he needed it and had a good blow afterwards. He is a horse who tends to pull himself up when he’s done enough so I told Steve Haes to push him out. We’ll now have to see how he has come out of that workout.”

The interestingly named Ming Dynasty (not the 1980 Caulfield Cup winner) also galloped strongly. Trainer Mikel Delzangles said: “Everything has gone well with the horse’s travel out here and it was important to find out how he took to travelling. I’m happy with the horse but this will be competitive. It will be good experience and he will be a nice four-year-old, maybe for Dubai next year.” I’m not sure a comment like that inspires great confidence for Sunday.

Fiero goes to the Mile in good form, coming off a second in the Mile Championship at Kyoto three weeks ago, beaten by Maurice. He galloped 800m in 51.8s (29.7, 22.1).
Kazuo Fujiwara, assistant trainer to Hideaki Fujiwara, commented: “This is his second time in Hong Kong, so he has settled in well and is relaxed compared to last time he came here.  He has had only four starts this season but everything has gone as planned for this coming Sunday.  This year’s Hong Kong Mile has a strong field to beat, but he has maintained good condition and he is ready to compete well. Today we gave him a breeze on turf and it was just to get a feel of the track.”

If Twitter is a reliable measure, Danon Platina is a popular horse with race fans in Japan. Pictures of him generate a large number of retweets and favourites (still haven’t come to grips with this like business). He had a gentle time of it on the grass today and looked more relaxed than he did yesterday. In fact work rider Toshio Fujii said: “He worked on turf for the first time here but settled in well. He was a bit tense yesterday but seemed to be more relaxed this morning.  He walked around the parade ring nicely this morning and will gallop on turf tomorrow.” Fujii looked somewhat horrified yesterday when his mount started to reef.

Nuovo Record stands out, mainly because his work rider continues a tradition for Japanese work riders to have a stand out jacket. Her team are happy “The track was not as wet as we expected with this rain.  She was not shying in the parade ring.  She is full of energy and we will gallop her on turf tomorrow.”

Staphanos, a strong second in the QEII cup here in April, was another to impress. He’s obviously been set for this since that run, he’s only had two starts since. Effectively he comes into this third up. He galloped in 800m 52.8s (30.3, 22.5).

Jockey Keita Tosaki commented: “We had a nice gallop on turf this morning.  I had an impression that the grass surface seems to be something between the Japanese turf and a Bermuda grass type of turf.  He handled the surface well and moved nicely.  There is no concern about him.”

Kazuo Fujiwara, the assistant to trainer Hideaki Fujiwara, said: “We worked him to give him strength and loosen him up in his gallop, and to let him grab the surface to get a feel of the turf, so a fast time was not our concern today. I am very happy with his condition.  He is looking well.”

Sakura Gospel was another whoo looked at the turf before a more serious gallop tomorrow. Assistant trainer Isao Futaguchi said: “I worked him on turf to get the feel of the surface and it seems ok to me, but he was shying a bit.  He looks well.  It was good for him to get acquainted with the turf course before he breezes tomorrow.” He went to the parade ring with Mikki Isle

Mile contender Toormore had an easy canter on the turf over 1600m. Travelling head lad Tony Gorman said: “He’s great, super. He’s putting back on the weight that he lost on the journey and it’s all systems go. The boss (Richard Hannon) will be here tomorrow.”

A pretty busy morning for the turf today and some more to come tomorrow. Stand outs for me were Staphanos and Fiero.