Moore has eyes on more prizes after Werther win in QEII Cup

Not Listenin’tome wins the HKG3 Bauhinia Sprint Trophy over 1000m earlier this season.
Not Listenin’tome wins the HKG3 Bauhinia Sprint Trophy over 1000m earlier this season.

John Moore bagged the first of Hong Kong’s spring Group 1 features when Werther streaked clear for an emphatic victory in last Sunday’s Audemars Piguet QEII Cup and now the handler has his sights fixed ahead, to this upcoming Sunday at Sha Tin when the HK$10 million Chairman’s Sprint Prize (1200m) and HK$14 million Champions Mile will share the spotlight.

With last year’s mile champ Able Friend recuperating in Australia, Moore’s hopes of adding to his six victories in the Champions Mile rest upon Rewarding Hero, and those hopes are, realistically, no better than fair when faced with Able Friend’s December conqueror, Japan’s Maurice – not forgetting Hong Kong’s current mile stars Giant Treasure, Contentment and Beauty Only.

“Rewarding Hero’s that bit older and just not as good as he was when he ran second to Able Friend in this race but he ran well in his last couple of races, so we’ll see what he can do this time,” said the handler.

If Moore is to snag a Group 1 double on consecutive Sunday’s, his best chance is likely to be Not Listenin’tome in the same afternoon’s Chairman’s Sprint Prize, a race upgraded to G1 for the first time this year and the fourth leg of the Global Sprint Challenge. The latest of Moore’s four wins in the sprint feature came back in 2011 when Dim Sum held off Sacred Kingdom by a neck.

Not Listenin’tome will have to overcome the rigours of a disappointing trip to Dubai in March if he is to snare the prize. The five-year-old was among the leading contenders for that G1 Al Quoz Sprint down Meydan’s straight 1000m course but failed to fire when racing on the ‘wrong’ side of the track under Ryan Moore.

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“He was hanging towards the winning post in the Al Quoz,” said the trainer. “I’d said to Ryan to just get on the flanks of Peniaphobia and get across to the stands’ side but he wasn’t able to do that. The horse seemed to have his head on the side and wanted to go the other way. He wasn’t comfortable – we just have to forget it. I thought, with the speed he has, he’d just run across but it didn’t happen.

“You just don’t know after a horse travels. He’s given every indication since Dubai that he’s fine but you just don’t know until they race – they can run flat on you. It seems like he’s going good, he’s back to his winning body weight and he should be at his top, but there’s always a thought in the back of the mind that Dubai might have taken the edge off him.”

Prior to that Dubai run, Not Listenin’tome had been in fine form on the domestic scene, notching a trio of 1000m wins and placing third in both the G1 Hong Kong Sprint and the G2 Jockey Club Sprint at Sunday’s course and distance. Those efforts saw him rank equal third best sprinter in the latest edition of the World’s Best Racehorse Rankings.

The world’s top two, Australia’s standout, Chautauqua, and Hong Kong’s Champion Sprinter Aerovelocity, will stand in Not Listenin’tome’s way this weekend, as well as another Aussie, Buffering – his equal according to the official rankings. Factor Japan’s Horse of the Year, Maurice, into the Champions Mile, which has also attracted the smart Godolphin runners Bow Creek and Safety Check, and the weekend card at Sha Tin is excitingly world class.

“We’ve got Japan’s number one miler and we’ve got Chautauqua, the world’s number one sprinter, what more could we ask?” said Moore. “We had Lovely Day here last weekend – he might well have been Japan’s Horse of the Year had Maurice not beaten Able Friend here in December. This is great – the Jockey Club’s done a good job at attracting the top horses for these races.”

Moore will saddle Charles The Great in the Chairman’s Sprint Prize, too. Meanwhile, the 1200m speed feature has also attracted last year’s winner Gold-Fun, December’s G1 Hong Kong Sprint victor Peniaphobia, G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint hero Mongolian Saturday and the hugely promising Hong Kong-trained four-year-olds Lucky Bubbles, Thewizardofoz and Amazing Kids.

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