Purton lands 800th winner
Australian ace achieves Hong Kong milestone with Raichu and goes on to complete treble
A Zac Purton treble dominated events at Happy Valley on Wednesday night, with the premiership title-chaser reaching a career landmark and bagging the night's trophy race for good measure.
The former champion was in the zone from the outset, driving the David Ferraris-trained Raichu to a short head win in the Class 5 opener. The 2.3 favourite will go down in the records as Purton's 800th Hong Kong win.
"I'm happy with that - it's a nice number to get to. Now everyone can start talking about something else," Purton quipped after becoming only the fourth rider in Hong Kong history to reach 800 winners.
The Australian reached 798 with a five-timer on March 23 but suspensions had limited him to only one race meeting since. That was on April 8 when a single score took him to 799.
The milestone reached, Purton followed up in Race 2 on 4.5 chance Savannah Wind and completed an accomplished three-timer aboard Fast Most Furious in the Class 3 Hong Kong Rugby Union Cup Handicap (1,200m).
The latter had been the cause of a two-meeting suspension for Purton when an unlucky second at the course and distance last month.
The Lope De Vega five-year-old made amends in fine style this evening at odds of 2.8, stretching out to a two-length score over the Joao Moreira-ridden Double Valentine.
"I was hoping he'd perform like that again tonight, backing up his great run from last time, and he went out and did it," said Purton, after edging to within 12 of champion jockey Moreira in the title race.
"As he's gone on he's learnt more about racing here in Hong Kong, he's become sharper at doing everything. He began really well, he put himself in a great spot, the speed was perfect and I had a lovely run.
"He's a handy horse going forward because I don't really think that's his distance and he's got a lot of nice attributes."
Fast Most Furious was trainer David Hall's eighth win of a frustrating campaign and his first since Feb 18 - the handler has had 10 seconds in the interim.
"This horse was hard work when he first arrived," said Hall. "It took him a long time to adapt and we didn't expect to see him doing this - in his first couple of trials he was pretty unimpressive and took a while to handle the firmer ground. He's become a bit solid in the last six months and coping a lot better.
"Everyone saw how unlucky he was last start. There should be a little more improvement to come and a few more wins in store."
Jockey Keith Yeung sealed a race-to-race double when Clear Choice held Split Of A Second by half a length to win the Class 4 Ewo Challenge Trophy Handicap (1,200m). That followed Art Of Raw's show of stamina in the preceding Class 4 Kowloon Tsai Handicap (2,200m).
Clear Choice rewarded favourite backers at 2.4.
Art Of Raw returned 18-1. - HKJC
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