Hugh Bowman scores his 25th win of the season aboard the Brett Crawford-trained Beauty Missile, who finally won a race at the 37th attempt (Picture: HKJC)
Brett Crawford scored his tenth win in Hong Kong at the Happy Valley meeting on Wednesday and he has done it at a fine strike rate of 11.63% as his runners have only had 86 runs between them to date.
Crawford won the first race on Wednesday with the Australian-bred Smart Missile gelding Beauty Missile, who was brought home by Hugh Bowman to prevail by a head in the Class 5 event over 1800m, having jumped from a tough draw of ten.
Beauty Missile jumped superbly but things weren’t looking good around the first turn as he was caught three wide without cover and was near the back.
Bowman than decided to take the 36 start maiden right up to the lead and he hit the front when hitting the final turn.
Most of his supporters would have been throwing their tickets away, because surely he had expended too much energy.
However, they would not have reckoned with Crawford’s conditioning skills.
Just as he looked likely to be swamped Beauty Missile found extra and put his nose back in front.
He then plugged on gallantly all the way to the line to finally break his duck by a margin of a head.
Crawford had got two fourths and a fifth out of him in five previous starts for the yard and he started second favourite paying 4.80 on the Tote.
