Hours from disaster - the world's best sprinter dodged a bullet but all's well that ends well

Pictures of winning jockey Brenton Avdulla all but dancing in the rain after a victory at Sha Tin on Sunday left many racing fans around the world convinced that the world's best sprinter, Ka Ying Rising, had ticked the box for a wet track performance.

They were wrong, but the clouds that opened up three races after Ka Ying Rising made his much-awaited return were a reminder that his preparation for The Everest in Sydney was only hours from ending up in utter disarray.

The day began with Tropical Storm Tapah, with a Typhoon 3 classification, sitting just 200 miles south of Hong Kong and getting closer.

For overseas readers, who might be unfamiliar with the typhoon signal system in Hong Kong, there are five signals, in an ascending order of intensity: Typhoon 1 (T1), T3, T8, T9 and T10. When T1 or T3 signals are posted, life goes on as normal, albeit with some wind or rain attached.

However, a T8 signal, or higher, brings life to a stop.

Children go home from schools, businesses close, public transport shuts down.

It's down tools for everyone - by law - and the fact that it affects transport - in a city where those services are widely-used - means that business or school closures have to happen hours earlier so as to allow travel time.

There have been race meetings called off in Hong Kong on bright, sunny days, simply because a T8 the day before prevented meeting preparations from being made.

So, the Hong Kong Weather Observatory makes a preliminary announcement, an announcement foreshadowing an announcement, two hours prior.

The HKSAR Chief Executive's Cup was inaugurated after Hong Kong's return to China in 1997 and the Hong Kong's first chief executive after reunification, Tung Chee-hwa was not the biggest racing fan.

As a result, it was thought best to have the opening day celebrations and presentations over by the first race, allowing the chief executive to return to his preferred duties as speedily as possible. And there has been a tradition of running the Chief Executive's Cup early in program since - it hasn't been race one for a long time but it is regularly race three, as it was on Sunday, rather than later in the card, where feature races are usually run.

In slightly different circumstances, that might have proved a blessing on Sunday.

"It is the first time we have started a meeting with a T3, so full credit to our staff for a great job. We had enough positive information in the morning to start but we were not sure that we would be able to finish it," said the Jockey Club CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges. "We had a good discussion with the Weather Observatory and another prediction source in China. By 10am, the Observatory was confident that the T8 would not happen until after racing. As it was, the preliminary T8 announcement came just over an hour after racing, with the signal posted at 9.20m, and we had to close telephone betting on the night's simulcasts and football matches. But much earlier and we would have had to shut racing down mid-meeting."

Had the typhoon system changed course - by no means unusual - and the meeting been called off, Engelbrecht-Bresges said it would have been a "nightmare" for the Jockey Club but a disaster for team Ka Ying Rising.

"Of course, we discussed alternative plans if they were needed and the Chief Executive's Cup could have been run next Sunday - but that would not have helped Ka Ying Rising because he will be in quarantine by then and that can't be changed," he said.

Trainer David Hayes said that there had not actually been a Plan B for Ka Ying Rising, at least not one that he actually liked. And Plan A wasn't even perfect.

"We even talked about an exhibition gallop on the opening day instead but I really didn't want to go into The Everest first-up. I wanted him to have a run. and the best option was to do that in Hong Kong," said Hayes, who had publicly suggested the Jockey Club change the conditions to set weights conditions for the annual season-opening feature. "The Chief Executive's Cup under handicap conditions wasn't the optimal plan in my view just the same - running in a good quality race, first-up for six months, with a big weight and conceding lots of pounds all around, you can't afford anything to go wrong. He's pretty trainerproof, to be honest, but if the races had not gone ahead, then it was a real head-scratcher. It would have messed up the preparation and he would have had to run in The Everest first-up."

Of course, none of that happened, all's well that ends well and Ka Ying Rising won handily in the kind of performance that Hayes and jockey Zac Purton would have wanted to see.

A bit has been made of his winning time on social media, given that people saw there was rain around Sha Tin, but it betrays a total lack of understanding about Hong Kong tracks. They are often quicker with a little bit of rain and the 15 ml of rain before racing was not enough to make any difference to the firm track.

The first half of Sunday's meeting was actually run on one of the quicker tracks of 2025, and certainly quicker than last year's meeting.

By our trackspeed-adjusted comparisons between Ka Ying Rising's wins in the race in 2024 and 2025, the overall time was almost exactly the same, carrying the same weight, but this year's final 400m was more than six lengths slower.

"Zac did say they went very quick midrace and, under the weight, it did take a few strides for Ka Ying Rising to gather up the leader, who is a pretty good horse and getting 20 pounds off us, before he asserted himself," Hayes said. "But he was comfortable at the finish and he's where we want him."

There certainly were different shapes to his two opening day wins, as Hayes indicated, and Ka Ying Rising paid for that mid-race exertion with his final sprint.

Race shape has a lot to do with final sectionals, but there's s no getting around the final sectionals were very slow. Ka Ying Rising's last 400m in 22.94 seconds, for example,would have ranked him the tenth-best finisher in the opening race, a Class 5 for Hong Kong's slowest horses won by the eight-year-old You'remyeverything.

It also made him the 40th-best finish of the entire day and behind some horses which ran in races 7 and 8, when the track really did appear to have slowed from the mid-meeting rain.

So bottom line, how did he perform?

We would suggest it was one of Ka Ying Rising's lesser performances of the last year in terms of a rating number - still G1 standard but a length off his usual, remarkably consistent, champion level numbers.

On the positive side, though, Ka Ying Rising weighed in 38 pounds heavier than he had been winning the Chairman's Sprint in April and 15 pounds heavier than he had ever been before.

Paddock parade expert, Jenny Chapman said she could see the extra weight on him but it looked more like added strength and maturity than anything else.

Ka Ying Rising's racecraft was also as good as it has ever been - despite hunting out of the stalls, he relaxed when instructed, changed his lead leg when required and was the complete finished article, in terms of manners, for the first time.

So, the rating number was down a little but with fitness fine tuning to come and a stronger, more seasoned racehorse - that has to be a touch scary.