Sweet Sanette flies the flag for SA

Sweet Sanette breaks Happy Valley taboos

Hong Kong

Happy Valley


SOUTH AFRICAN mare Sweet Sanette broke a class record, and a few other apparent taboos, as she strode away with HappyValley's featured Class 1 five-furlong sprint under the lights at Happy Valley.

There are but a handful of fillies and mares amongst a population of roughly 1,200 horses in Hong Kong - six or seven at most. And the South African-imported population among the trackwork numbers no more than 20.

Percentages are even less that they will handle the tight Hong Kong city track at their first time of asking against seasoned veterans.

Combine all that to being trained by Gary Ng and the assistance of Springbok jockey Greg Cheyne - not the fashion in feature races these days - and Sweet Sanette cast the lot aside by leading from the start and saying farewell from there.

"I knew her from home and she has kept her explosive early toe. She won in a lesser grade at Sha Tin last time with the same quickening to leave them alone and lead as she likes, but to do it round these contours and not be phased says a lot about her," Cheyne enthused.

Gary Ng's pursuit of Sweet Sanette has to be commended even more as normally imports from South Africareap few rewards in Hong Kong- nevermind so swiftly.

"We knew she was good and had potential, but you must put your South African horses through longer periods of quarantine to get here and then hope they reproduce their form. It's even tougher with a female in Hong Kong but this one is special," the trainer said.

Elsewehere, after a four-meeting suspension, jockey Matt Chadwick wasted little time being among the winners again by riding a double on Golden Bauhinia (Me Tsui) and Eastern Empire (Tony Cruz).

The latter ran under the same banner in England last year, placed at Heritage Handicap level for trainer John Hills, and slipped under the guard of a few at his second HK outing.

Great Stuff,she is on fire!!!

Boys,

She apparently won in COURSE record time, not class record time!!

What an amazing win. She must have turned into a really great filly!!

Sweet Sanette lights up murky Sha Tin

Report: Hong Kong, Saturday

Sha Tin

SWEET SANETTE illuminated a murky afternoon at Sha Tin revealing Group race potential after an almost effortless victory in the Victoria Racing Club Trophy (Class 1).

The swift South African mare, imported last year by trainer Gary Ng, made the most of her light weight and took out the best event on the card by three and a half lengths.

"She copped a real bump at the start but it didn'tbother her," said jockey Greg Cheyne.

"She has so much early pace and led easily and I didn't see another horse after that."

One of just a handful of females in training in Hong Kong, Sweet Sanette won the Group 3 Sycamore Sprint in Johannesburg year ago and could be bound for similar honours with Ng likely to target the HK Group 2 Sprint Cup on May 1.

Douglas Whyte and Zac Purton shared jockey honours on the day as both rode a treble.

Whyte won the griffin race - a contest reserved for horses in their first season of racing - on London China Town (Manfred Man) and the exciting Entrapment (John Size) made it four wins from as many starts in a Class 3 dash on the all-weather surface.

In the final event, Whyte and Size added to their tallies when You Gotta Pay collected a Class 2 mile from towards the bottomof the handicap.

Purton, on the other hand, won lesser races on Loads Of Joy (Francis Lui), Mighty Feeling (David Ferraris) and the progressive Pizzazz (Paul O'Sullivan) - although he incurred a two-day suspension on the latter in the process.

Highflying apprentice also Ben So fell foul of officialdom after a week to forget.

He picked up a four-day ban for careless riding on Joyful Years, and this came after being stood down for eight meetings, having pleaded guilty for not taking reasonable and permissible measures to achieve the best possible placing on Super Fortune last weekend.

Her half-brother runs at Scottsville tomorrow!

rob faux Wrote:

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> Her half-brother runs at Scottsville tomorrow!


He was supported on debut as well, but I do believe the others will have too much pace for him. I think he may be better over 1200m being by Dynasty?

Good luck to the owners!

A feature race is also not the easiest place to break the maiden tag!

I was told she was running, I tried to get on but HOLLYWOOD only showed betting for S.A., Mauritius & U.K.

Why no Hong Kong betting ? 6/1 what a lovely price !

I got to watch the race, she blitzed the other runners and won easily under Greg Cheyne, now with a rating of 109 her options are limited and she may run over 1200 on the 23 May. Will the 1200 be too far ?

She won over 1160m in the Sycamore sprint,but 1200m in top class is probably a different story?

Third beaten just over a length to Sacred Kingdom in a grade1 yesterday Race Replay