What did Sunday's G2 dress rehearsals tell us about Hong Kong International Races next month?

This is where we are now with Ka Ying Rising - exactly a year from the kiss cam and finger pointing celebrations of his first G2 victory in the 2024 edition, Sunday's smash carried nothing but an air of inevitability, before, during and after.

He's in man bites dog territory, where only defeat would now be a story of any note.

He's also in Silent Witness territory, with the Hong Kong Jockey Club was required to top up the win betting pool to the tune of $HK 215,524.45 so that bettors could be paid the minimum dividend of $10.50 for their $10 bet as a pure calculation of the right payout would have been a little over $8 for every ten.

That donation from the club was something that happened constantly when Silent Witness won his first 17 starts just over 20 years ago and it's clearly going to become just as much a part of Ka Ying Rising's career.

On the Winning Factor ratings, Ka Ying Rising's career best was 102 when he won his first Chief Executive's Cup, and I subsequently told trainer David Hayes that it would be a mild surprise if the sprinter ever rates higher than that. He doesn't need to - 100 is champion material on our scale and KYR puts up that rating or close to it in most of his starts.

But he would probably have done that if Beauty Waves had pushed the pace along More in the middle stages, or if Zac Purton had asked some more of Ka Ying Rising over the final 200m.

Due to the timing of track maintenance patterns, as the Jockey Club changes the grass from summer to winter, this Jockey Club trial meeting often throws up very fast tracks but Sunday's was not one of them.

It was faster than average, not quite as fast as last year's meeting, but Ka Ying Rising still ran 0.1s quicker for the 1200m. Corrected for the state of the going, the first 400m was 2 lengths faster than average for this level of competition then, with no pressure on him, Matthew Poon was able to dial the lead back to average on Beauty Waves mid-race, before the world's best sprinter took over from the top of the straight and zipped home 2 lengths faster than average, without looking at all stretched.

Whether he set a new rating mark or improved on his 67.20s course record didn't matter. This was all that anyone needed to see on his return from Sydney and enough to say the Hong Kong Sprint is over.

Like Silent Witness, or Australia's great mare Black Caviar, Ka Ying Rising is almost immune to bad luck as he can be used early to make sure he has the right position, used mid-race to maintain it and used at the finish to put his rivals away.

This time, there was still finger pointing from Hayes and Purton, but it came post-race and in calmer fashion.

Fast Network led home the chasing group, Helios Express third after being held up in the final 400m, but there is a fairly evenly-matched group squabbling over the second billing.

In the Jockey Club Cup, the result was just as predictable in many ways, with Romantic Warrior beating Voyage Bubble and both of them beating the rest with some comfort.

With Hong Kong's globetrotting champion returning after a fractured fetlock required surgery in May, this was a moment of relief for connections and Hong Kong, more than a moment of triumph, even though we would regard the race as meaningless for any future form analysis.

Zac Purton on Voyage Bubble, who had the fitness advantage of a recent race, attempted to seize the initiative in what always promised to be a slowly-run race and went to the front where he was untroubled to do as he liked.

Again, considered in the context of the speed of the track, this was bizarro world, with a race set up that allowed Romantic Warrior to run down the straight at the end of 2000m faster than Ka Ying Rising had done at the end of 1200m.

Look at those sections - the first 400m 10 lengths slower than average, the next almost 7 lengths slow and the section from the 1200m to 800m over 9 lengths slow.

For a Romantic Warrior first-up for seven months over 2000m after a significant, perhaps, the set up couldn't have been better - he had to run at top speed for just 400m.

If you wanted to nitpick the tactics, after such a walking pace early, perhaps Purton could have got them sprinting earlier and asked Romantic Warrior to stretch to an 800m run to give him more of a fitness test but it might not have made a difference and we won't ever know. In a 400m race with a moving start, Romantic Warrior was by far the best and the key point of the victory was confirmation that the champion galloper was back from injury in good form.

The overall time for the topliners was two seconds slower than the Class 3 earlier in the day - itself a race run at slower than average for that class - but surprisingly not the slowest Derby or Group race over 2000m at Sha Tin this century. In fact, it ranks as only the 22nd-slowest, and still a long way behind the 2002 Hong Kong Cup won in a shock result by Precision in a time almost three and a half seconds even slower.

In terms of our ratings, this performance wouldn't make Romantic Warrior favourite for a 2000m maiden, but nobody is assessing him (or Voyage Bubble or any other runner) on this performance going forward. There were some good finishes, particuarly Bundle Award, who broke 11 seconds for both his final 200m sections, but it highlights the myth of sectional times in isolation - it's easier to run big final sections after spending no early energy.

The Jockey Club Mile was a horse of a completely different colour - it was the polar opposite of the Cup.

The key lead-up to this had been My Wish's Sha Tin Trophy victory beating Copartner Prance, when both first and second raced up on a much faster than average tempo.

With that as his point of reference, Keagan De Melo on Copartner Prance again set out on Sunday to run them along early and he found a willing accomplice in Matthew Chadwick on Pray For Mir.

Between them, they made sure that there was no place to hide up near the lead, so that was a help to the placegetters, Galaxy Patch, Sunlight Power and Happy Together, coming from ninth, eleventh and tenth on the home turn but unhelpful for anything racing closer.

So, even though Luke Ferraris was sitting quietly at the 400m on My Wish, that looked more like him nursing the beaten favourite for as long as possible rather than an expression of overconfidence.

Despite the wicked pace - almost 5 lengths faster than average for both of the first two 400m sections - My Wish, sitting just a couple of lengths back, had still overraced and fought his rider to go faster. Between the pace and his own manners, it's no surprise that My Wish had nothing left to give when asked to quicken and he probably did well to be beaten just a length.

Why was it so? Well, Mark Newnham's stable star has probably done his best with gaps of just three or, at most, four weeks between races and he turned up here with five weeks between starts.

Perhaps that left him fresher than usual and more inclined to pull but he will have just three weeks between runs when he runs on December 14 and perhaps we will see a better version of him then. I wouldn't give up on My Wish for the Hong Kong Mile, if you're fan.

For Galaxy Patch, it was redemption for the horse who looked the next big thing a year ago and was beaten in this same race as a 1.7 favourite in 2024. He had not won since and that gloss was off him as it became clear that his racing style, with a real lack of tactical pace, made him vulnerable every time to bad luck and to horses capable of sitting closer to the lead.

So this brutal speed was everything he needs, destroying the leaders, opening up the field earlier as horses tire and roll about and allowing the kinds of gaps that James McDonald was happy to take. McDonald got plenty of credit for the ride, following the fence from barrier two and never going around a horse, but the star of his show was really the tempo.

Both Galaxy Patch and runner-up Sunlight Power, to a lesser extent, suffered a check in an incident at the 800m but, with the leaders dropping like flies up ahead when they turned into the home stretch, that didn't stop them being too strong.

Galaxy Patch remains a high class horse but one thing is likely on international day - with much of the Hong Kong Mile field made up of visitors, the pacemakers from this event might not even make the race, so he could be looking around for tempo help that isn't there.