Quote:
|
Originally Posted by my miss storm cat
Tomorrows barrier trials... Good luck to Love Lockdown, Dynamic Blitz, Best Mate (anyone else get depressed any time they see that name?) , Fairy's Kiss and Hawthorne.
|
Too bad you can't play barrier trials.
Hawthorne
wins batch 1, Love Lockdown
wins batch 3, Dynamic Blitz
wins batch 5 (Best Mate 3rd and Fairy's Kiss 9th).
http://www.hkjc.com/english/press/btrs.asp
Feel better Trulli! (withdrawn)
Retired...
Chief Witness (owned by the DeSilvas... the Silent Witness owners. Hope he's okay, hasn't raced since December)
Elite Champion (the former St. Phillip who never seemd to do well in HK. He was 3rd twice but that's about it).
Winning Reward (the former Weld-trained Favourite Nation)... 9 year old warrior.
Probably his best moment...
http://www.hkjc.com/english/racing/r...2007&raceno=10
The Challenge...
The CSL Million Challenge will reach its climax onWednesday (24 February) when owners of the three most consistently successful horses at Happy Valley since September are rewarded for their outstanding performances.
This is the second year of CSL's three-year sponsorship of the CSL Million Challenge and it has been a great success. After five months of tight and competitive racing, there are still several horses with a chance of bagging the bonuses of HK$650,000, HK$250,000 or HK$100,000 respectively for the top three points scorers.
Nine of the top 10 contenders have been entered for this Wednesday's Happy Valley meeting and racing fans are ensured of some hard-fought and thrilling battles.
The Dennis Yip-trained Loyal Army is the current leader of the CSL Million Challenge. Loyal Army has found his new world at the city track by scoring three wins and two thirds from six starts this season. He recently picked up a significant 15 points by beating Always Something as well as fellow Challenge contender Good Strike.
With 53 points, Loyal Army is seven points clear of his nearest challenger and Yip is confident his five-year-old son of Strategic can snatch the top prize.
"The owner has been very keen to win the Million Challenge and so Loyal Army has been doing all his racing here and more importantly, he has kept improving and getting stronger," Yip said.
Loyal Army will contest the Class Three Kwai Fong Handicap in the last event of Wednesday's racecard, in competition with other top challengers including fourth-placed Nugget Warrior (44 points), sixth-placed Good Strike (40 points) and eighth-placed Tai Sing Yeh (34 points).
"I know most of the contenders will run on Wednesday but my horse is extremely good at Happy Valley," he added.
Yip also has another entry, Our Lucky Baby, lying in tenth position with 30 points, but believes it will be difficult for the horse to finish in the top three places even if he wins the Briar Handicap in Race 6.
If Loyal Army cannot add any points in his final assignment, it will certainly make the Challenge finale more exciting, as eight other contenders still have the chance to finish among the top three points scorers and cash in on the bonus.
Caspar Fownes remains confident of the chances of his five-year-old Australian import, Nugget Warrior.
"He will give a big threat to the leader if something better is off his game," Fownes said.
Trainer Almond Lee fields Good Strike on the card but the horse must run to his best to keep his door open.
The Me Tsui-trained Strawberry is capable of applying pressure up front and has already obtained two wins, two seconds and a third to score 46 points. He will run in the Shing Ping Handicap in Race 7 over 1650m but Tsui concedes that he lacks confidence in the consistent Strawberry being able to add more points to his tally in the Challenge finale.
"He has maintained his high consistency as always and we will definitely try hard to keep our position," Tsui said.
Tony Cruz's Norman Invader, now lying fifth, will clash with fellow contender Our Lucky Baby over the 1200m trip in Race 6.
http://special.hkjc.com/promo/en/2009_hvmc/main.asp