Hawkes leaning towards Diamond Jubilee Stakes for Chautauqua
Michael Hawkes says connections of Chautauqua now have “two million reasons” to take the world’s top-rated sprinter to Royal Ascot.
The champion five year old confirmed his status as racing’s best sprinter with a last to first finish to win the HK $10 Group 1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize (1200m) at Sha Tin on Sunday.
Chautauqua has now won two legs of the Global Sprint Challenge, with one more leg required to trigger the USD $1 million bonus, which is given when a horse can claim three races in different jurisdictions of the Global Sprint Challenge.
Hawkes said he would wait and see how Chautauqua is in the morning, with quick decision necessary because of quarantine restrictions, before making a call on whether the globetrotting horse would continue on for a possible crack at the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 18.
“Obviously we see how he pulls up in the morning but there’s about two million reasons to go now,” Hawkes said.
“We have to decide UK or home by the morning. If he does go, he’s booked to fly Wednesday night and will go straight to Mike de Kock’s Abington Place (stables) in Newmarket.”
It was Chautauqua’s 12th win of his 22 start career, and the first for an Australian-trained runner since Falvelon’s 2001 G2 Hong Kong Sprint win, under frequent visitor Tommy Berry who now has six major race wins in Hong Kong on his resume.
Berry eased Chautauqua to the widest of all after straightening and, despite conceding the leaders at least six lengths start at the 300 metres mark, was able to overwhelm a high class field and win by a neck from Lucky Bubbles with Strathmore a length further back in third, which completed an Australian-bred trifecta.
“They went very quick,” Berry said in something of an understatement after Buffering and Peniaphobia sizzled through the first 800 metres in 45.49s. “I wasn’t worried that we were so far back given the speed but I was concerned that he came off the bit earlier than he usually does.
“But he overcame that because he’s a very special horse. At the 250 (metres), I took a deep breath. I was within striking distance of the leaders and I didn’t want to be too anxious. I just let him go through his gears and you saw what he can do.”
Berry said the fast pace had definitely assisted Chautauqua who has now won five of his 10 starts at group 1 level and has never finished outside the first three.
“I hoped they’d run along and they sure did. Brett (Prebble) said on pulling up that they’d never gone this hard in a sprint race in Hong Kong,” Berry said referring to the jockey aboard runner-up Lucky Bubbles who ran well at his first try at group 1 level.
Berry summed up the win with two words. “Unbelievable, fantastic,” he said as he went on to acknowledge the work done by the Hawkes’ training team and the efforts of fellow jockey Dwayne Dunn who has shared riding duties on the exciting sprinter with Berry. Dunn was on course today.
“I’m just happy to be part of the show and proud to represent Australia today,” he said.
For Hawkes, who trains in partnership in Australia with father John and brother Wayne, it was a dream performance but not without a momentary nightmare before the start when Chautauqua had to be twice reshod on the off-hind during the preliminaries.
“Dreams are made of this, having a horse of this calibre,” he said.
“I was stressed, I’ll admit that. Nothing had gone wrong all week and then he pulls a shoe twice before the race.
“He was buzzing but remained pretty calm and then went out and got the job done. It’s not so much the times he runs but how he does it. He’s got an unbelievable action and he let rip the way we know he can today. He does ridiculous things and proven how good he is today.”
Given Chautauqua’s rating and brilliant performance on Sunday, then Lucky Bubbles’ trainer Francis Lui and his connections have much to look forward to with the lightly-raced four-year-old whose performance delighted jockey Prebble almost as much as the effort of the winner stunned him.
“Who brought that rocket here?” Prebble said of the winner. “I gave my horse a peach of a ride and one still sailed past him. Lucky Bubbles ran so well and he’s going to keep getting better you’d think.”