It’s always special when Kiwi bred sprinter Ka Ying Rising steps out at Sha Tin, but on Sunday it was even more so with the world’s fastest horse breaking the track record for 1400m as he powered to a record 18th consecutive win in the Group I Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup.
Stretching his unbeaten sequence beyond Silent Witness’ longstanding mark of 17 wins, slotted between 2002 and 2005, Ka Ying Rising obliterated his opposition in 1m 19.36s to smash the previous course record of 1m 19.92s, jointly held by Encouraging and Packing Hermod.
His rider Zac Purton confirmed David Hayes had told him pre-race “to break the track record” after he had ridden Ka Ying Rising hands-and-heels to the finish, three-and-half-lengths clear of Helios Express with Lucky Sweynesse one-and-a-quarter lengths further astern.
Ka Ying Rising jumped quickly from barrier three to sit second behind Copartner Prance and clocked 21.93s from the 1200m to the 800m before putting his rivals to the sword over the final 800m in a blistering 43.96s, with respective 200m splits of 11.26s, 11.07s, 10.52s and 11.11s to create history.
Ka Ying Rising has the overall record of 19 wins and two seconds from 21 starts and barring misadventure it looks hard to see him being beaten when he returns to Australia later this year for another crack at the $20million The Everest.
“If we can place him conservatively, we hope to have him for another couple of seasons, that’s really exciting,” Hayes said.
“He loves a month between runs, so we’ll probably go for the (G2) Sprint Cup (1200m) next (on 6 April) and then we don’t have to train him too hard and babysit him into the Chairman’s Sprint Prize (1200m on 26 April).
“Hopefully we can get another clean sweep of the season again with The Everest in the middle.
“He’s more composed than ever, he’s changing legs and you can’t ask for much more than he’s doing. He’s breaking track records and his last three runs, he’d have broken the track record if Zac had let him go.
“He jumped so well (today) and cruised through the bend beautifully – at the 300m, I could really enjoy it. I could tell he had the race in command. Zac went for him a bit more than he normally does and rode to instructions, which was good.”
“I’ve trained a lot of horses that have gone 742 days without winning, so to continuously win for 742 days is mind-numbing,” Hayes added.\
“It’s two and a half years and the thing people don’t realise is that he was the (equal) youngest horse in the race today. They always think he’s the big boy bashing them up, but he’s actually the baby.
“It’s a huge relief. I didn’t think the team could have had him better for today and I was confident that if the track was riding fast, he could break the (track) record. I didn’t want Zac sitting up in the last 100m, I said to him ‘let him run through the post and we’ll see how strong he is at 1400m’. He’s just a star.
“I just thought for his worldwide ratings, I wanted Zac to let him go today and hopefully he can keep climbing up that incredible ladder that he’s going up. When you’ve got a horse as good as him, he’s the one everyone will be comparing the next big horse too.”
The best horse sired by Shamexpress, Ka Ying Rising is the first winner for Missy Moo, a five time winning Per Incanto (USA) mare that traces directly back to blue hen Taiona, the dam of Group I winners Sovereign Red, Gurner’s Lane and Trichelle with the family also producing modern day superstar Mr Brightside.
Both Mr Brightside and Ka Ying Rising have Taiona as their fourth dam!
