Glorious Days for NZB Ready to Run Sale
19 November 2012
NZB’s Ready to Run Sale of 2YOs – which begins tomorrow at 11am – is in red-hot form celebrating a third stakes winner in nine days last night with the hugely exciting Hong Kong galloper Glorious Days winning the Group 2 Jockey Club Mile at Sha Tin.
Glorious Days (Hussonet x San Century) was the second Group 2 winner for the NZ Ready to Run Sale in a week with Nashville (Darci Brahma) winning the Group 2 Coupland’s Bakeries Mile last Wednesday. Graduate Kullu (Elvstroem) also won the Listed Gold Club Metropolitan Trophy on 10 November.
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Karaka graduates Glorious Days & Ambitious Dragon |
Crowned Hong Kong’s Most Improved Horse at the 2012 HKJC Champion Awards, Glorious Days has always looked a Group winner in the making for trainer John Size, winning four races in a row last campaign before running three seconds in the HK-1 Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup, HK-2 Chairman's Trophy and Group 1 Champions Mile.
The five-year-old owned by Tom Brown's Syndicate resumed his current campaign with a good second to fellow Karaka graduate and dual Hong Kong Horse of the Year Ambitious Dragon (Pins) in the HK-2 Sha Tin Trophy in late October and turned the tables last night with Ambitious Dragon forced to settle for second place.
With the pair settling side by side in mid-field, jockey Douglas Whyte brought Glorious Days between runners at the top of the straight and the son of Hussonet unleashed his powerful turn of foot, racing clear to beat Ambitious Dragon by a length-and-a-half.
“He has always promised to do that, it was just a matter of whether he delivered,” said John Size.
“I don’t think you could ask more of his effort today. It’s a pretty big run going into a big race (the Hong Kong Mile), which is always a discomfort, but he’s got three weeks to get over it. Hopefully he might repeat. I think if he just repeated that run that would be enough. To ask him to step up after a run such as that would be asking too much.”
Karaka graduates and New Zealand bred horses have won the last two Group 1 Hong Kong Miles with Ready to Run graduate Able One (Cape Cross) winning the race last year and Beauty Flash (Golan) in 2010.
Glorious Days began his racing career in New Zealand, winning his only start at Te Rapa in March last year by three lengths before being taken to Hong Kong. What the horse has achieved in just 11 starts is a big achievement and last night’s victory took his record to six wins with a further four placings for over $1.5 million in stakes.
Bred by Richard Pietrykowski, Glorious Days was offered by Lyndhurst Farm at the 2009 Ready to Run Sale. Mark & Shelley Treweek’s Lyndhurst Farm has been the leading vendor at the Ready to Run Sale for the last five years and are this year represented by a draft of 25 two-year-olds in the two-day Sale. To view Lyndhurst Farm’s 2012 Ready to Run Sale draft, click here.
For news and sale information from NZB visit www.nzb.co.nz. The 2012 Ready to Run Sale will be streamed live online from 11am Tuesday.