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Glory Vase lands Hong Kong Vase at Sha Tin provided his late sire Deep Impact with his 45th Group 1 winner.
Glory Vase lands Hong Kong Vase. The victory of Japanese horse Glory Vase in Sunday's Hong Kong Vase (Group 1) at Sha Tin provided his late sire Deep Impact with his 45th Group / Grade 1 winner.
"He ran amazing; the emotion is getting the better of me but that's what it's about, winning big races, and today we've got another one. To come back and win on a Japanese horse, it makes it all worth it," said winning jockey Joao Moreira, who left Hong Kong for Japan for a short while before returning full-time to his adopted home city this time last year.
Three-wide off the home turn, Moreira switched to an inside alley as Exultant made for home. Glory Vase, Grade 1-placed but not a winner in that grade before Sunday, quickened to lead at the 200 metre mark and kept on going, drawing three and a half lengths clear at the line in a swift time of 2:24.77.
"I was quite blessed to get in two off the fence, get cover and get him to relax," Moreira said. "I had horses on top of me at the 800 metres but good horses, if they face a tough situation, they just go through with it and he wasn't any different.
"He just kept himself in the gap and just before we turned for home I was kind of trapped and had to ride for luck. I sneaked on the inside and hoped the gap would come. Fortunately it did."
Lucky Lilac, a daughter of Orfevre, was beaten three and a half lengths for second, whilst locally-trained Exultant was third.
Glory Vase is the best to date out of the winning Swept Overboard mare Mejiro Tusbone. Yesterday's victory took his record to 4 wins and 3 placings from 10 starts with earnings now totalling almost $4,500,000.
Multiple champion sire and a son of Sunday Silence, Deep Impact stood at Shadai Stallion Station before his death earlier this year at the age of 17. Sitting at the head of the 2019 leading sires table in Japan, Deep Impact has a number of sire sons in Australia including Arrowfield Stud's Real Steel and Mikki Isle, Woodside Park's Tosen Stardom and Coolmore's Saxon Warrior.
Japanese horses dominated the Hong Kong International meeting this year, winning 3 out of the 4 Group 1 races on the card.
