Southern Legend wins Champions Mile

Monday 27 April 2020, 8:12am

Southern Legend has ruined Beauty Generation's bid for a third Champions Mile at Sha Tin with a last-stride victory over Hong Kong's Horse of the Year.

The win on the Caspar Fownes-trained seven-year-old was a first at Group One level for home-grown jockey Vincent Ho who served his apprenticeship with the winning trainer.

Both Southern Legend and Beauty Generation did their early racing in Sydney with the latter Hong Kong's highest-rated horse in world rankings.

Southern Legend was originally being prepared for a tilt at a third-straight win in the Kranji Mile but those plans had to be changed when Singapore racing shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Fownes switched his program to Sunday's feature meeting at Sha Tin with racing continuing in Hong Kong without public attendance.

"We had the opportunity to set Southern Legend and go for the Singapore race, to try and go for three wins in a row there, but when this virus hit we had to change plans pretty quickly," Fownes told the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

"He's beaten the best on their day, there's no doubt about that. When horses were flying, he beat Pakistan Star, Nothingilikemore and now the best horse Hong Kong's ever seen, Beauty Generation.

"This is all about Vincent. He deserves that more than anyone.

"With hard work, if you keep plugging away, things will come your way. To get it on my horse, that's extra special.

"He's been a great kid and he deserves all the success he can get and I think hopefully next season, if the local trainers and all of us can get behind him, we can certainly put him up there to fight it out with Zac (Purton) and Joao (Moreira)."

Beauty Generation was ridden by ex-pat Australian Purton with trainer John Moore flagging retirement to coincide with his own departure from Hong Kong.

The 70-year-old Moore will relocate to Rosehill in Sydney at the end of the season with Hong Kong enforcing the mandatory age limit for trainers.

"I'd like to take him back for a mile race in Australia and then have him stay there at the Living Legends Farm," Moore said.

"That's what I'd like to do but what the Kwok family wants to do is what counts, I don't know whether they'll keep racing him or retire him."

Purton did not come away empty handed, riding Exultant to win the QEII Cup to to become the first jockey to win all Hong Kong's Group One races.

Karis Teetan took out the Chairman's Sprint, the other Group One race on the program, aboard Mr Stunning.

While Joao Moreira failed to ride one of the major winners, a treble on the program means he maintains his three-win buffer over Purton in the race for the jockeys' premiership.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »