Aidan O’Brien will try to finish his 2024 campaign on a Group One high in Hong Kong on Sunday.
At the end of another landmark season, Ireland’s champion trainer is set to throw four darts at the prestigious €15 million Hong Kong International Carnival in Sha Tin early on Sunday morning.
Topping O’Brien’s list of contenders is the Ballydoyle stalwart Luxembourg who will have his final career start in the €2.9 million Vase over 1½ miles before retiring to stud.
Last year Luxembourg was beaten a short head by the local superstar Romantic Warrior in the 10-furlong Hong Kong Cup and O’Brien’s contender is a general 7/1 shot in ante-post betting to go one better this time.
Luxembourg will be joined by last year’s St Leger winner Continuous in a race in which Japan’s Stellenbosch, winner of this year’s Japanese 1,000 Guineas, and Australia’s Without A Fight are also expected to be major players.
O’Brien has won the Vase three times before, twice with Highland Reel (2015 and 2017) as well as Mogul in 2020.
However, it is 20 years since Ireland’s sole success in the programme’s most valuable race, the €4.8 million Cup, when Jim Bolger’s Alexander Goldrun secured a memorable victory.
Luxembourg joined Magic Wand (2019) and Magical (2020) in hitting the board but missing the bullseye for O’Brien who this time will rely on the fillies Content and Wingspan.
Both ran out of the frame in last month’s Breeders’ Cup although Content can boast a top-flight success in the Yorkshire Oaks and Wingspan was runner-up to Kalpana on British Champions Day at Ascot.
They are set to take on the heavy favourite Romantic Warrior while last year’s top-rated Japanese filly Liberty Island is also in the line-up.
O’Brien has enjoyed 22 Group/Grade One successes this year, starting with Warm Heart in Florida last January.
Victories for Henri Matisse and Lake Victoria at the Breeders’ Cup brought his career tally at US racing’s showpiece event to a record-equalling 20 winners.
This year has also seen O’Brien secure a 10th Epsom Derby with City Of Troy while Auguste Rodin was his 400th top-flight success when victorious at Royal Ascot in June. He is champion trainer in Ireland for a 27th time and topped the British lists this year for a seventh time.
Ireland’s champion jockey Colin Keane will be in Hong Kong action before that when he lines up for an international riders’ challenge at Happy Valley on Wednesday.
It is Keane’s third time to take part in a contest that includes Ryan Moore and William Buick, as well as local stars Zac Purton and Vincent Ho.
In other news, Henry De Bromhead could take on the likely favourite Jonbon for Saturday’s Betfair Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown with Quilixios.
The former Triumph Hurdle winner is one of eight left in the Grade One contest with Joseph O’Brien also leaving in Solness.
De Bromhead won the Tingle Creek in 2011 with his former stable stalwart Sizing Europe. However, he also endured frustration with another of his two-mile champions, Special Tiara, who was controversially hampered at the last fence in 2015 by Sire De Grugy.
Quilixios returned to action with an impressive defeat of Marine Nationale recently and was initially installed as second favourite for Saturday’s highlight.
Jonbon tops the market at heavy odds-on as he prepares to defend the crown he won in 2023. On that occasion he beat old rival Edwardstone by almost three lengths and the pair are set to clash again this weekend.
Saturday’s other Grade One at Sandown is the King Henry VIII Chase for novices. Gordon Elliott has left in both his impressive recent Navan scorer, Down Memory Lane, and Touch Me Not who won the Craddockstown at Punchestown over a week ago. Joseph O’Brien’s Jordans is also among the six left in at Monday’s acceptance stage.
Tuesday’s domestic action is in Clonmel where Sandor Clegane and Three Card Brag get their seasons under way in a three-mile conditions hurdle.
They were last seen finishing behind Spillane’s Tower in a Grade One novice chase at the Punchestown festival. Three Card Brag did best in third on that occasion but forecast ground conditions may favour Sandor Clegane more.
