Johnny Murtagh will maintain his profitable partnership with Nice One Clare in next month's Hong Kong Sprint. The Irishman will be back on board the mare he has ridden to victory in the Wokingham Handicap at Royal Ascot, a Listed race at Doncaster and the Diadem Stakes at Ascot.
Those were all six or seven-furlong races while the Sha Tin contest on December 16 is over five furlongs, a trip the five-year-old has never previously tackled. Trainer Pip Payne confirmed: "Obviously she is going into the unknown by running over 1,000 metres but she loves coming off a fast pace on fast ground. For a sprinter, she has not had a hard season and she is in very good form here. Johnny Murtagh, who has got on so well with her, will take the ride."
Payne, whose stable-star will fly out to Hong Kong next Monday, is looking forward to a longer stay in the territory than on his previous visit. The Newmarket trainer recalled: "I have only spent 24 hours in Hong Kong in my life. That was in 1968 when I was travelling horses to the Far East for the British Bloodstock Agency well before I set up as a trainer. I only saw Kowloon Bay."
Filed by Shane Murray
