HK MAR 2 - FIVE ON THE TROT FOR SOLAR GREAT

By Hong Kong Jockey Club | Saturday, March 2, 2013

Solar Great made it five wins from as many starts this season to ensure a home victory in the HKG3 Hong Kong Macau Trophy (Handicap) today as BMW Hong Kong Derby entrant Happy Era caught the eye in luckless defeat.

Hong Kong has now won eight of the 10 renewals of the race, which is the first of two legs in the annual inter-port challenge with nearby Macau. The second leg, the Macau Hong Kong Trophy, is at Taipa Racecourse Macau on Sunday, 21 April.

It was a Macau raider, Absolutely Win that led the field off the home turn and kicked for home but Douglas Whyte atop Solar Great had the Gary Moore-trained runner well within his sights as the field fanned out.

His progressive mount accelerated powerfully to hit the front half-way down the stretch and narrowly held the strong late thrust of runner-up Happy Era by a neck in 1m 22.03s.

“It’s pretty surreal to win. It’s always tough to win five in a row and especially in Hong Kong it’s a lot harder to do. Getting to this level, obviously the hurdles get higher every time so I’m pretty proud of what the horse has done,” said trainer David Hall of the five-year-old who was notching his first Group race win.

“After his last win Brett (Prebble) said he was ready for 1400m. He’s more relaxed now and he’s in the zone – we thought it was the right distance for him and once you get up to this sort of rating the programme dictates to you a little bit.

“I just thought the lighter weight was the right way to go and these horses going into Group races with a light weight is normally a very good formula.”

The HK$500,000 bonus on offer to any horse that wins both inter-port races in a season looks like going unclaimed as Hall stated, “he won’t be going to Macau.”

Happy Era, third in the HKG1 Hong Kong Classic Mile in January, posted a strong run with the HKG1 BMW Hong Kong Derby (2000m) coming up on 17 March.

John Size’s charge raced near the tail and had to wait on his run at the top of the stretch as Solar Great made his winning move.

Forced wide across the Sha Tin straight, the four-year-old stormed to the wire. Last year’s winner Majestic Falcon took third a further three quarters of a length back.

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