Luke Ferraris and Mark Newnham celebrate their Hong Kong Classic Mile success. (Picture: HKJC)
Luke Ferraris is slowly but surely breaking into the big time in Hong Kong and had a groundbreaking meeting on Friday at Sha Tin with a treble that included his and trainer Mark Newnham’s most important success together to date i.e. winning the HK$13 Million Hong Kong Classic Mile for 4yos with Australian-bred Flying Artie gelding My Wish. Later on they landed an exhilarating victory together on Drakenstein-bred Mid Winter Wind (What A Winter), who was making his Hong Kong debut.
The Hong Kong Classic Mile is the first leg of the HK$52 million Four-Year-Old Classic Series, which continues with the HK$13 million Hong Kong Classic Cup (1800m) on 2 March and the HK$26 million BMW Hong Kong Derby (2000) on 23 March.
Read all about My Wish’s victory in the link at the bottom of this article.
Mid Winter Wind’s victory was of particular importance to South African racing.
SA-breds have not been doing well in Hong Kong recently.
However, Mid Winter Wind was the first SA-bred for ages to have landed on the island without having had to endure an arduous journey via Mauritius.
Instead he was able to have a comfortable journey starting with a direct flight to Europe.
His immediate success, in which he came from last and weaved his way through traffic with a devastating finishing burst, must have been noticed by overseas buyers.
The SA-bred has always been viewed as fine value, but with the easier new export protocols they could prove to be better value than ever, which Mid Winter Wind has gone some way to showing with that eyecatching Hong Kong debut victory.
The What A Winter gelding was bred by Drakenstein Stud and raced for them in South Africa, with a win in the Gr 3 Byerley Turk over 1400m at Hollywoodbets Greyville being one of his four victories in nine starts.
Mid Winter Wind is out of the former Gr 1 Thekwini winner, the Dynasty mare Lady In Black, who was runner up in the Gr 1 Paddock Stakes twice, runner up in the Gr 1 Majorca Stakes and a narrow third in the Gr 1 Woolavington 2000.
Mid Winter is now owned by James Lau Po Man & Alice Woo Wai See.
The below article about Friday’s Chinese New Year meeting was written by the Hong Jockey Club scribe and goes some way to describing the importance of Luke’s victory in the Hong Kong Classic Mile.
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT LUKE’S HK CLASSIC MILE VICTORY
Luke has had 24 wins this season which puts him in a heady fourth place on the log and this is particularly impressive because he is the only rider in the top nine on the log who has had less than 200 rides this season.