3 minute read
Joe Lau’s versatile galloper Crown Of Gold chalked up win number seven in Macau, with another brilliant display of speed on the all-weather surface in Saturday’s Class 2 over 1050 metres, to give him back-to-back wins at the trip.
Ridden by regular jockey Luis Corrales, Crown Of Gold began only fairly but quickly pushed through to be part of the lead with Sport Genius and Luen on Prosperity. Rounding the home turn, it was evident that it was going to be a two-horse affair as Sport Genius under Breinell Yamzon tried to give Crown Of Gold the slip as he pinched a two lengths break on straightening.
Corrales however waited until the son of Duporth (Aus) balanced up, and the big gelding showed a great turn of foot to reel the much smaller Sport Genius to win well on the line. Lau's other runner in the race Lucky Gold (Dayversom Barros) finished a distant third.
Crown Of Gold is the complete racehorse; he has now won from 1050 metres on the sand to 1800 metres on the turf. The gelding proved himself on the turf last season with four straight wins that seen him sent out as one of the Derby favorites. After striking trouble in his Derby run, the gelding would up in fourth spot only beaten two lengths by his stablemate Sacred Magnate.
With seven wins and four placings from his 16 starts, Crown of Gold has picked up close to $1.5 million HKD in prize money for his connections.
Originally a $40,000 NZD purchase by Victoria Peak Bloodstock at the 2017 NZB Ready to Run Sales, the gelding found his way to the stables of Toby Edmonds at the Gold Coast.
Whilst there under the Aquis banner he was registered as The Romanian, and won at barrier trial at the Coast in nice fashion before being sold onto Macau.
Crown Of Gold is by Duporth (Aus) out of the Group winning mare Zanna by Pentire. Zanna won six races from 1400 metres to 2050 metres, including the Group 2 VRC Empire Rose Stakes, the MRVC Tesio Stakes and the Listed AJC Angst Quality.
The gelding goes to scale at close to 1250 pounds, making him one of the biggest horses in the enclave. He has a high cruising speed and can put himself straight into the race, and shows plenty of fight at the end of his races.
River Unicorn is a nice young horse on the way up that scored his third straight win in Saturday's Class 3 over 1350 metres (sand), again under Luis Corrales.
Prepared by Sio Cheong, River Unicorn enjoyed the run of the race before zipping through on the inside once in the home straight to take the lead. Stadium under Masa Tanaka tried hard to run him down to no avail, with Fortune Paradise (Eric Cheung) one and a half lengths away in third.
A son of Savabeel (Aus) from the Stratum mare Refreshing, River Unicorn has now won four races and placed three times from nine starts.
The three-year-old was a $90,000 NZD buy at the 2019 NZB Ready to Run Sales.
The win by Colonel Mordaunt took trainer Geoff Allendorf to 21 victories for the season, and equal fifth place on the Trainers Premiership Table.
Given a gem of a ride by Japanese jockey Shogo Nakano, Colonel Mordaunt went home too well for Marqula (Breinell Yamzon), with Special Charger (Roger Yu) in third.
Allendorf was placed equal second with Danny Wong in last season's premiership with 32 winners, 11 wins behind Champion trainer Tony Fung. However, this season has been tough going with only four winners posted up until the end of January. That said, it's all starting to come together in the past few months, with more frequent trips to the winner's circle.
"The stable's running good, we started to pick up after Chinese New Year and actually the figures are better than they appear. We've had 21 winners but also, we have had 52 placings with 24 of those in the Q spot. So, we are regularly bringing in prize money and that keeps our owners happy." Allendorf said.
From his 215 runners for the season Allendorf has at present a 10%-win rate and a 34% place rate.
Ricky Choi is another trainer that is starting to pick up the tempo after a very slow start to the season, with the win by Wo Hero in the 0 to 40 Handicap giving him his tenth winner for the season.
Ridden by Roger Yu, Wo Hero came a with a late surge to beat River Pentium (Masa Tanaka) by three quarters of a length, with Sheng Li Star (Eric Cheung) a neck away in third.
Wo Hero has always shown promise but has taken awhile to come to hand for Choi. The son of Real Saga (Aus) won a barrier trial by five lengths at Newcastle when trialing as Seconds Please for Kris Lee's. Whilst it's taken eight runs in Macau to break his maiden status there has been three placed efforts, and his run time of 1.09.1 was a tick quicker then Colonel Mordaunt posted in the Class 3 & 4 later in the day.
