今天應該很高興
在澳洲時與一位老牌育馬者晚膳,大家追憶起一些馬王的歷史。
飲得兩杯突然他提問:「你們香港現時草地短途和一哩馬評分在世界排首位,但有無想到可能是我們或英愛這一兩屆大將凋零呢?事實上這幾百年來世界各地名駒馬王多的是,只是咁剛巧你們這幾年威下而已!」
我當然首先提出反駁,指出「精英大師」是舉世無雙的世界短途王,而「蓮華生輝」好成點,大家未知,可以放長雙眼來看。但我無向他說的心底話,是「爪皇凌雨」和「爆冷」與「奇異光芒」、「天文學家」、「威武神駒」、「臨泰萊」,甚至「黃金旅程」、「大震撼」等根本無得比,而老實說,「請放鬆」、「重疊」、「好利時」等實力亦遠在「好爸爸」之上。
但一如中國有五千年歷史,但偏偏在百多年前遇上滿清腐敗,當時被列強幾乎瓜分,世界各地其實也有不少一流佳駟,但配種界是搵大錢的天堂,Big Brown跑幾場就話值五千萬美金,Haradasun無敵於澳洲,卻偏不來無配種價值的香港,視獎金於無物,反而去雅士谷贏馬,奠定南、北半球配種地位。如果牠來港跑冠軍一哩賽,「好爸爸」不是牠對手。
今天香港應該很高興,在對手普通的情況,兼且國際評分帶點主觀成份,撇開政治因素,有咁高排名,飲得杯落!
I don’t really agree with these international ratings. It seems to me that USA/ Euro horses always have higher ratings and sometimes the betting markets follow. I use two recent examples here:
1. Curlin ( USA horse) was 3s on running against RedRock ( ( UK horse, 6-1) on turf/ Man’O’War. The bookies must be joking and Curlin lost.
2. This one is even more interesting:- Archipenko ,which was a Irish-trained O’Brien horse, was sold to a South Africa stable after Authorised's Derby win. He first came to HK and won the QEII easily and he totally murdered Viva Pataca, you know! Yet in the Group 2 Ascot Summer Mile running against some G3 sub-standard UK horses like Cesare and the first-up Romonti ( who ONLY defeated Viva Pataca because of M Kinane’s mistake). They opened it at 6/1 then eased to 12/1 at SP….Needless to say, those with non-biased view cleaned up the bookies. If this horse is not trained by a SA trainer, they would have bet 6/4 and I am not kidding.
And moreover, if Deep Impact was trained by O’Brien, they would have rated him up to the likes of Dancing Brave and Mill Reef!!
...Haradasun This horse was a sucker. He had a Ferrari engine but with Kmart tyres ( i.e. he had had bad feet across his whole career) I won on him at Doncaster but I considered myself lucky. The only reason he could win at Ascot was due to team riding. If they did the same in Australia or HK, the stewards would have dis-qualify him. **A special note on Team Riding:---Just log on to YouTube and watch the Irish Derby!!!**香港排世界首位, 值得飲杯!