Beauty Joy earns another season with Group 3 Premier Plate win
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Beauty Joy (129lb) almost certainly staved off retirement after the evergreen eight-year-old upstaged younger rivals to land the HK$4.2 million Group 3 Premier Plate Handicap (1800m) for Tony Cruz and Brenton Avdulla at Sha Tin on Sunday.
Nearing the end of his fifth Hong Kong season after an unbeaten four-race stint in Australia in 2020 when he raced as Talladega, the Sebring gelding showed no signs of fatigue in surging past Hong Kong Derby (2000m) victor Cap Ferrat (126lb) and Bundle Award (115lb) in 1:46.91.
Second last early, Beauty Joy trailed fast-finishing Cap Ferrat into the middle of the track before the pair collared leader Pray For Mir (121lb) with Beauty Joy then outsprinting his rivals to claim a seventh Hong Kong win – and his fourth at Group level – to boost his earnings to over HK$35 million.
Cruz, who last won the Premier Plate with Exultant in 2018, revealed Beauty Joy – who is three times Group 1-placed – had almost certainly earned another season after pre-race discussions with Simon Kwok, whose wife Eleanor and son Patrick race the chestnut.
“In the parade ring before the race, Simon said ‘I hope we win this race. If we win this race, we’re going to keep on racing him’. He won, so it looks like we’re going to keep on racing him next season,” Cruz said.
“He’s a healthy horse and as long as he’s healthy, we’ll keep going. We’re going to keep the flow going.”
On a high after the recent birth of his son Kobe in Sydney, Avdulla said Beauty Joy was a challenging horse to ride.
“We seem to get on very well, I’m on the only one to win on him for about probably three years. He was good to me last season (winning the Group 2 The Chairman’s Trophy, 1600m) and we’ve had another Group race today. Obviously well handled by Tony to get him today here in good form and he did his job well.
“He’s such a quirky horse. You just can’t get any feel of him early. You’ve just got to try and let the bridle fall out of his mouth as much possible because he can be a very difficult ride.
“I never knew I was really in the race until just before the corner when the pace steadied and he got hold of the bridle and I gave him a little click into gear and he felt like a horse that was going to take me a long way.
“He did a good job. He had to come off the Derby winner’s back and get out after him and he did that in good style, so it was nice to get one for a loyal supporter like Tony and the Kwok family, too.”
2025 Group 3 Premier Plate Replay – Beauty Joy
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