Brave Smash (Jpn) has a very nice horse in Hong Kong in the shape of four year-old gelding Divano, who scored his fifth win on Sunday when stepping up to Class 1 company for the first time.
Trained by Francis Lui and ridden by Angus Chung, Divano made use of his light weight to score by more than a length over stakes-winner Patch of Theta.
Divano improved his record to five wins from 14 starts and, with the winner’s purse of HK$2.08 million and a PPG Bonus of HK$1 million, the four-year-old boosted his earnings to HK$10.5 million.
Divano competed in the Four-Year-Old Classic Series and was second in the Classic Mile to My Wish.
“I think he keeps improving little by little. He’s more relaxed and once he relaxes, he can have a good turn of foot. In the (Hong Kong) Classic Mile (1600m), I think he learnt from that race,” Lui said.
Divano was a successful pinhook, bought by Jim Carey for $57,500 from the Erinvale Thoroughbreds draft at the Inglis Great Southern Weanling Sale and then re-offered at Inglis Classic where he made $90,000 to the bid of Ryan & Alexiou Racing / D Raphael.
Bred by Aquis in partnership, Divano is the first winner for Been Scene, a three time winning Bianconi (USA) mare, whose grand-dam is Group III winner Princess Plume.
Hellbent also chimed in with a winner at Sha Tin.
The Ricky Yiu trained three year-old gelding Ahren, scored by nearly three lengths over 1200m at his third start. Second and fourth at his first two runs in February and March, Ahren is clearly on the improve.
“He’s learning so quick and he’s got a good temperament. When we work him in the mornings on his own, he’s very casual. We knew Lean Master would lead and that would make it easier for us,” Yiu said.
Ahren was a $135,000 Magic Millions weanling purchase for Brian Clarke and was then re-offered by Segenhoe Stud at Magic Millions as a yearling where he was bought by Ricky Yiu for $220,000.
Ahren is the fourth winner from four foals to race from stakes-placed Exceed and Excel mare Belhamage.
