Pravda, the mare which stopped the race that stops a nation when stage fright resulted in her late scratching from the 2000 Melbourne Cup, finally has a Flemington win thanks to her High Chaparral-sired son, strong stayer The Good Fight.
This year has been another annus horribilis for Queen Elizabeth II with the death of her husband and scandals plaguing her immediate family, but Her Majesty’s gallopers lifted her spirits with a 40-1 treble from three runners.
Both Frankel’s progeny and Tiarnna Robertson-trained Chris Waller cast-offs are undefeated in Western Australia after Yangtze Rapids, a son of the world’s highest-rated galloper ever, won Thursday’s Western Racepix Handicap at Northam.
Former boom apprentice Victor Wong, who was indentured to Leon Wells in Tasmania and Richard Jolly in South Australia, avoided the ignominy of a winless Hong Kong thoroughbred racing season when he rode a winner at this term’s last meeting.
Unbeaten in his last 14 races and defeated only once in his 18-start career, Golden Sixty is the 12th Australia-bred thoroughbred to be the Hong Kong Horse of the Year and the first such galloper since 2016-2017 champion Rapper Dragon.