Arguably the best horse ever to be trained in Hong Kong, Golden Sixty became a household name during the region’s strict Covid lockdown period. J A McGrath traces his career ahead of his hat-trick attempt in Sunday’s Hong Kong Mile, one of four Group 1 events at the annual HK International Races at Sha Tin
Covid lockdown heroes were uncovered in the most unlikely places when the global pandemic was taking its grip on daily life in 2020.
Those heroes varied. There were doctors and nurses in hospitals, neighbourhood social workers, scientists searching for a cure-all vaccine; then there were fund-raisers for the charities needed to provide support and care for the sick and vulnerable.
The effects of Covid are still being felt today – and what has also varied is the severity of those effects, often depending on where you reside in the world.
Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, is one place where the fallout from Covid has been ongoing. Lockdown has been long and severe for a population of seven million.
New breed of punter
Those months spent at home in Hong Kong’s multitude of small flats and apartments had a major effect on the gambling-mad community, spawning a new breed of online punter focussing on sports in general, but racing in particular. Yet while football betting has grown enormously in the Far East, the Hong Kong punter remains most passionate about horse racing.
So, with that in mind, perhaps it was not surprising that one of the biggest lockdown heroes in Hong Kong was a racehorse. A special racehorse. One who would string together 16 consecutive victories, most of them during lockdown, remaining unbeaten from September 2019 until January 2022.
His name is Golden Sixty, and he is one of the best ever seen in this evolving racing capital. On Sunday [Dec 11], that reputation is on the line when the seven-year-old gelding attempts to complete a hat-trick in the G1 Hong Kong Mile at Sha Tin as the track hosts the annual Longines-sponsored Hong Kong International Races, the four-race series billed as the ‘Turf World Championships’.
I say ‘one of the best’ because on the official ratings, complied by a team of international handicappers, Golden Sixty is still overshadowed on Hong Kong’s all-time list, ranking third with a best figure of 125 behind former local champions Able Friend and Beauty Generation, who remain joint-top with a rating on 127.
However, Golden Sixty has won 22 of his 25 starts, which already sets him apart as the winning-most horse of all-time locally, four clear of an illustrious group on 18, which include Beauty Generation and Super Win, one of the early stars of the professional era, who was trained by former international jockey, Australian champion George Moore of Royal Palace fame.
Hong Kong racing turned professional in 1971 – amateur riders had been instrumental in developing it from the early Jockey Club days in the 1880s – and the standard of horse has improved year-on-year, which logically means that today’s current crop in the top grade are the best to have raced there. But are they?
Best of them all?
While the official figures may indicate otherwise, there is a strong case to say Golden Sixty is actually the best of them all. It should be remembered that in arriving at their figures, handicappers are assessing individual performances in specific high-class races.
There is no accounting for a horse’s versatility over a variety of distances; nor is consistency reflected in a rating – unlike the Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s exclusive Global Rankings, where Golden Sixty is a former world #1 and currently sits at #5. Victory on Sunday will move him higher again.
Also, Golden Sixty is a seven-year-old to southern hemisphere time, and while that may be seen as a relatively advanced age for one competing at the top level, he could never be judged to have been over-raced.
By US and Australian standards, a total of 25 races in just under four years is not excessive, by any means. In fact, some would argue he has been carefully managed; there is an outside chance he could still make slight improvement.
Golden Sixty’s background and his ultimate path to Hong Kong make a fascinating tale, containing multiple international strands. He was bred in Australia by Asco International Pty Ltd, sold in January 2017 at the Magic Millions Yearling Sales for A$120,000 (about $80,000/£66,000) to pinhookers Riversley Park, a New Zealand bloodstock company.
Winning debut
Riversley Park then prepared him for the Ready-To-Run Sale at Karaka, near Auckland, in November 2017, where he was sold to Hong Kong trainer Francis Lui, acting on behalf of owner Stanley Chan Ka-Leung, for NZ$300,000 ($190,000/£156,000). He eventually found his way to Hong Kong, where he made a winning racecourse debut at Sha Tin in March 2019 aged three and a half.
Golden Sixty is out of a Distorted Humor mare Gaudeamus, who won three races as a juvenile (including a G2 at Leopardstown) for Jim Bolger in Ireland. The mare was sold to Australia, where her foals included Tasmanian Derby-placed Igitur (Helmet), who won five races. But she has had little else of any account.
Golden Sixty is already the highest prize-money earner in Hong Kong racing history with a career total of HK$116,250,600 (about $13.4m/£11m), thereby eclipsing a mark established by Beauty Generation.
That figure also makes Golden Sixty the biggest earner among the progeny of Darley’s US-based sire Medaglia D’Oro, the Travers Stakes winner who memorably finished runner-up to Pleasantly Perfect in both the Breeders’ Cup Classic and Dubai World Cup for the great Bobby Frankel.
As well as being hugely successful, Medaglia D’Oro has proven a versatile sire. His many notables on the dirt are headed by superstar fillies Rachel Alexandra and Songbird; on turf, he is also responsible for for Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Talismanic as well as Australian-bred Vancouver, winner of the world’s richest two-year-old race, the Golden Slipper at Rosehill in Sydney.
It is doubtful whether Golden Sixty’s multi-national background can be matched by many others at this year’s HKIR meeting at Sha Tin, but one feature that neither his form nor profile can properly illustrate is the lethal turn-of-foot he has produced in his races. Time and again, his ability to quicken under pressure has destroyed his rivals; small wonder, then, he likes fast ground that doesn’t blunt his blistering speed.
He has been beaten only three times in his career. Incredibly, he came in 10th in a Class 3 handicap off a rating of 75 at the end of his first season – remember, he currently runs off 124 – and earlier this year, he finished second to Waikuku in the G1 Stewards’ Cup and third to Russian Emperor and Savvy Nine in the G1 Hong Kong Gold Cup, the latter on rain-affected ground, in which Blake Shinn on the winner outrode Vincent Ho on Golden Sixty, who in any event has a preference for fast ground.
Golden Sixty will be bidding to equal the outstanding Good Ba Ba by lifting the Hong Kong Mile a third time, and he will attempt it against strong Japanese representation headed by Salios and Schnell Meister.
It certainly takes a special horse to win any race three times at the HKIR but there is no doubt Golden Sixty answers that description and the cheers for this Covid lockdown hero will be heard on Victoria Peak should he pull it off.
Plenty of good judges say he will do it. And so do I.
• View previous articles in the View from the Rail series
• Visit the Hong Kong Jockey Club website
World traveller Annabel Neasham ready to fly Aussie flag in Hong Kong
Alcohol Free joins Gai Waterhouse after 5.4 million guineas sale as records tumble at Tattersalls
Why the Breeders’ Cup was a blip for Japan – Nicholas Godfrey on the Japan Cup
View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires