Sacred Kingdom lands Group 1 in superb style
James Reed
22-Feb-2010 |
 Sacred Kingdom delivered one of the most emphatic performances of his career by capturing the Chairman's Sprint Prize on Sunday.
The three-time world's top-ranked sprinter slipped from midfield into clear running shortly after turning into Sha Tin's 4f home stretch and the 9-10 favourite gave his eight rivals windburn.
Under a confident Brett Prebble ride, the champ breezed to an easy success by a length-and-a-quarter margin from longshot Sunny King, with market second pick, Happy Zero, the most recent to beat the champion last November, finishing third.
This was Sacred Kingdom's sixth Group 1 win over the past three seasons - he missed the first half of last term with a sesamoid ailment.
Two of those came in the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint, three now in the domestic Speed Series, and last year's Singapore KrisFlyer Sprint.
Ultimately, the Encosta De Lago six-year-old proved on Sunday just why he is the fastest horse on the planet - in this form nothing else can live with him.
Trainer Ricky Yiu seemed non-committal in the post-race briefings as to whether to target the third leg of the Hong Kong Speed Series, the Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup over 7f in mid-March, or the Takamatsunomiya Kinen in Japan, two weeks later on March 28.
The fact the race at Chukyo Racecourse near Nagoya carries US$1m plus to the winner compared to slightly more than half that if he wins in Hong Kong - and that includes a generous bonus for a clean sweep of the three legs of the local sprint series - may well persuade Yiu and connections across the East Asian Sea.
As such, the nascent Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai on turf looks a non-starter, but a repeat venture to Singapore for the KrisFlyer is still plausible.
Sacred Kingdom's win embellished a four-timer on an eleven-race card for Prebble who also won on Precision Magic and Shining Victory and Sapelli, the latter two for trainer John Size who recorded a treble on the day, the same asjockey Jeff Lloyd.
Prebble now holds a break of 14 winners from suspended champion Douglas Whyte who will also miss the midweek card at Happy Valley while his nemesis will be hungry to extend the lead at top of the jockeys' table.
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