A night after their arrival, Hong Kong powers Cape of Good Hope and Silent Witness took to Nakayama Racecourse on Wednesday ahead of Sunday's Sprinters Stakes, the finale of the 2005 Global Sprint Challenge.
With exercise rider Dale Bussey up, Cape of Good Hope, who captured the inaugural GSC title after the first four legs, took two easy laps on dirt around the Chiba Prefecture track at 7:40 a.m. on the muggy morning.
Silent Witness, who is back in Japan following his third-place finish at the Yasuda Kinen in June, trailed Cape of Good Hope in cantering through slightly more than seven furlongs.
The two horses,the only foreign entries for the first Group 1 clash of the Japanese autumn racing season,were off the course before the clock struck 8 a.m.
Bussey was pleased with the work he saw from his 7-year-old gelding, who is coming off a record victory in the Golden Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, a win that landed the GSC crown in the laps of the David Oughton-trained horse.
"We couldn't be happier," Bussey said on the form of Cape of Good Hope, a bronze medalist behind champion Calstone Light O and Durandal in the 2004 Sprinters Stakes.
The New Zealand rider added that Cape of Good Hope is in similar form to last year, when the 1,200-meter race was run on a soft track, conditions a bit too sloppy for the British-bred chestnut.
Bussey also said that the Nakayama hill along the 310-meter home stretch "will come into our favor" because Cape of Good Hope, in the steady hands of jockey Brett Prebble, will come from behind against an all-Asian field of 16.
If the track remains dry,no heavy rain was forecasted on race day as of Wednesday,Cape of Good Hope may very well drape his GSC title with a Sprinters Stakes medallion.
Bussey thinks his fellow traveler from Hong Kong and the highest rated sprinter in the world, 6-year-old Silent Witness, will be the horse to beat, describing him as "our main danger." Cape of Good Hope has never defeated Silent Witness, Bussey said.
Through the first five legs, Cape of Good Hope has been nothing short of dominating in the three-nation (Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom), six-race competition. He has racked up 54 points, a whopping 44 points more than the three nearest horses, Japan's Golden Cast, Fastnet Rock and Chineur.
Before blitzing through the Group 1 Golden Jubilee Stakes in record time with Nick Kinane in the irons, Cape of Good Hope was fourth in the King's Stand Stakes, first in the Australian Stakes and third in the Lightning Stakes. All his points were doubled since they were collected outside his region of Japan.
Cape of Good Hope's performance has drawn the highest praise from those involved in what has been a successful debut year in the GCS.
"Cape of Good Hope embodies everything the Global Sprint Challenge concept is all about and this success further proves that racing is becoming truly international at the highest level," said Nick Smith, Head of Public Relations at Ascot Racecourse.
Post time for the 2005 Sprinters Stakes, for 3-year-olds and up, is at 3:40 p.m. The winner's check is 94 million yen.
© Japan Association for International Racing and Stud Book (JAIRS). All Rights Reserved.
