The 5-year-old New Zealand-bred, Hong Kong-based gelding Ka Ying Rising won his career debut on Dec. 3, 2023. Back for a second race about a month later, Ka Ying Rising lost by a nose, and 20 days later, Jan. 21, 2024, he was defeated by a similarly narrow margin. Not only has nobody beaten him since, no one has come especially close, and none of his 9 rivals Sunday at Sha Tin Racecourse stood anything close to a chance.
Ka Ying Rising, already one of Hong Kong’s great horses, etched his name even more deeply in the record books winning the Group 1, $1.66 million Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup by 3 1/2 lengths. The victory, his 18th straight, set a new Hong Kong winning streak, Ka Ying Rising surpassing the 17 in a row that Silent Witness claimed between 2002 and 2005.
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The great gelding’s trainer, David Hayes, reportedly told the great jockey, Zac Purton, to go for the 1,400-meter Sha Tin record in the Silver Jubilee. Purton, who gave his mount a lovely trip stalking from second, did not have to work for it. Ka Ying Rising, who strides long for a sprint, turning for home cruised up to the pacesetter without being asked, came under a hand ride to open a wide margin, was geared down the final half-furlong, and still clocked 1:19.36. That shattered the track standard by a remarkable .52 seconds, and despite being asked for nothing in the final stages, Ka Ying Rising got his final 400 meters in a blistering 21.63. Ka Ying Rising also holds the Sha Tin course record for 1,200 meters.
“He’s the horse of a lifetime,” Purton told Hong Kong Jockey Club publicity. “I just shake my head every time with the performances he puts up and the ease with which he does.”
Helios Express closed decently from mid-pack to snare second by 1 1/4 lengths over Lucky Sweynesse. Helios Express in fact is the only horse to have come within a length of Ka Ying Rising during his streak, falling a half-length short in the 2024 Hong Kong Sprint.
Ka Ying Rising, by Shamexpress out of the Per Incanto mare Missy Moo, is a better horse now, on international ratings the world’s best sprinter. Last fall he left Hong Kong for the first time and captured the Everest Stakes in Australia, and Hayes – an Australian – hopes to get the gelding back to the Everest in October. In the shorter term, Hayes plans to target two April sprints at Sha Tin, the Sprint Cup and the Chairman’s Sprint Prize, and it’s hard to imagine that after the second of them, Ka Ying Rising’s mighty streak won’t stand at 20.
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