Versatile Crown Of Gold notches back-to-back wins
The Joe Lau-trained Crown Of Gold (Duporth) 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, giving 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 (Ocean Park) and Luen on Prosperity (Written Tycoon). Rounding the home turn, it was evident that it was going to be a two-horse affair as the Breinell Yamzon-ridden Sport Genius tried to give Crown Of Gold the slip as he pinched a two-length break on straightening.
Corrales, however, waited until Crown Of Gold 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 (Captain Rio), finished a distant third.
The versatile Crown Of Gold has now won from 1050 metres on the sand to 1800 metres on the turf. He proved himself on the turf last season with four straight wins that saw him sent out as one of the Derby (Listed, 1800m) favourites. After striking trouble in his Derby run, the gelding would end up in fourth spot, beaten two lengths by his stablemate Sacred Magnate (Foxwedge).
With seven wins and four placings from his 16 starts, Crown of Gold has picked up close to HK$1.5 million (approx. AU$257,000) in prize money for his connections.
Originally a NZ$40,000 purchase by Victoria Peak Bloodstock at the 2017 NZB Ready to Run Sale, the gelding found his way to the stables of Edmonds Racing at the Gold Coast.
Whilst there under the Aquis banner he was registered as The Romanian, and won a barrier trial at Gold Coast in nice fashion before being sold onto Macau.
Crown Of Gold is out of the Group-winning mare Zanna (Pentire). Zanna won six races from 1400 metres to 2050 metres, including the VRC Empire Rose Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) and the MRVC Tesio Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m).
Three on the bounce for Unicorn
River Unicorn (Savabeel) is a nice young horse on the way up and scored his third straight win in Saturday’s Class 3 over 1350 metres (sand), again under Corrales.
Trained 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. The Masa Tanaka-ridden Stadium (Redwood) tried hard to run him down, but to no avail, with Fortune Paradise (Animal Kingdom) one and a half lengths away in third.
Out of Refreshing (Stratum), River Unicorn has now won four races and placed three times from nine starts. The three-year-old was a NZ$90,000 at the 2019 NZB Ready to Run Sale.
Colonel provides in-form Allendorf with another win
Colonel Mordaunt’s (Zoffany) win on Saturday took Geoff Allendorf to 21 victories for the season, and equal fifth place on the Trainers Premiership Table.
Given a gem of a ride by Shogo Nakano, Colonel Mordaunt went home too well for Marqula (Coast Guard), with Special Charger (Helmet) in third.
Allendorf was placed equal second with Danny Wong in last season’s premiership with 32 winners, 11 behind champion trainer Tony Fung. However, this season has been tough going, with Allendorf only posting four winners up until the end of January. That said, it has all started 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. 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 ten percent win-rate and a 34 per cent place-rate.
Choi steps it up a notch
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 (Real Saga) 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 (Better Than Ready) by three-quarters of a length, with Sheng Li Star (Kyllachy) a neck away in third.
Wo Hero has always shown promise but has taken a while to come to hand for Choi. He won a barrier trial by five lengths at Newcastle when trialing as Seconds Please for Kris Lees. While it has taken eight runs in Macau to break his maiden status, there have 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.