Ka Ying Rising was imperious winning the Chairman's Sprint Prize in Hong Kong today. Photo / Grant Courtney
Michael Guerin in Hong Kong
The strangest part of what New Zealand racing’s Three Kings achieved this weekend is that it now feels normal.
It is not.
It is not normal that a country the size of New Zealand produces the fastest horse in the world.
A horse so physically superior that he jogs to Group 1 victories, regardless of the opposition.
Which is what Ka Ying Rising did at Sha Tin on Sunday night when he won the HK$24 million Chairman’s Sprint like it was a training gallop in track-record time.
He sat third before changing gears at the 300m and won eased down by jockey Zac Purton by four-and-a-quarter lengths for his 20th consecutive victory.
“He is a freak,” said Purton.
Ka Ying Rising is so good that in an industry built on backing your opinion, nobody doubts he is the best sprinter in the world.
New Zealand has had horses rated the best at something before, most recently Imperatriz, who was also rated the best sprinter in the world.
But often that can be open to argument and influenced by the time of the year, with Australasian horses racking up rating points while their Northern Hemisphere rivals have the northern winter off.
But this is not that.
Ka Ying Rising is point blank the fastest horse in the world, a Kiwi who can fly.
Considering the size of our foal crop and the fact New Zealand doesn’t typically breed sprinters (Imperatriz was, after all, Australian-bred) what Ka Ying Rising is doing is one of the most amazing stories in New Zealand’s proud racing history.
Rivals trainers, people whose entire livings depend on knowing their horses and opposition, are now paying him racing’s ultimate compliment: they want to race where he isn’t.
Hence, not one slot for this year’s A$20m Everest has been filled yet because, all going well, Ka Ying Rising will head back to Sydney to defend his title and rival slot holders are wondering where they can possibly find a horse worth lining up against him.
Ka Ying Rising might have to win another Everest, maybe even two more, for New Zealand’s racing public to fully appreciate what a wonder horse he is.
Others need no such convincing, with legendary jockey Ryan Moore saying this week Ka Ying Rising could be better than Australia’s former unbeatable champion sprinting mare Black Caviar.
But for many Kiwis, racing in Hong Kong is a Sunday night novelty, fun to watch but hard to put into context.
Here is some context.
By any metric, Ka Ying Rising now must rate in the top 10 racehorses ever produced in New Zealand.
And he is only a 5-year-old with maybe two or three seasons ahead of him and the potential to amass career earnings of $50m or even $60m.
While he is an equine rocket flying a New Zealand flag, he wasn’t the only once-in-a-generation, maybe once-in-a-lifetime Kiwi racing hero making abnormal things look normal over the weekend.
James McDonald is the Kiwi country lad who is, like Ka Ying Rising, the best in the world at what he does.
Before Saturday, McDonald had never ridden a winner in South Australia because he rarely rides there. He went to Adelaide on Saturday and duly won the Group 1 Australasian Oaks on Panova, a $1m classic.
It was the eighth Saturday out of the last nine McDonald has ridden a Group 1 winner, compiling in two months what would constitute the highlights of a good career.
That, as it turns out, was not enough.
McDonald hopped on a plane in Adelaide and then another to Hong Kong to be at Sha Tin on Sunday to ride Romantic Warrior in the HK$30m QEII Cup. He gave him the perfect ride in the one-one and Romantic Warrior bolted in.
So McDonald, as he has done before, rode two Group 1 winners in two different hemispheres inside 30 hours.
Think about that.
Think of all the great athletes in the world and ask yourself how many have ever been to the mountain top of their chosen sport twice in the same weekend in different hemispheres?
McDonald is in the form of his life, a man for whom record books and time zones are irrelevant.
The third member of the New Zealand racing’s Three Kings is the man who trained Panova to win that Oaks, the now Sydney-based Chris Waller.
Waller trains so many Group 1 winners, the only thing remotely different about Saturday’s Oaks win was it was in Adelaide.
It was his 199th career Group 1 and he should eclipse the Australian record of 246 Group 1 wins held by legends Bart Cummings and Tommy Smith within three years.
The numbers Waller could achieve by the end of his career have never been considered possible before, something he shares with McDonald.
So do yourself a favour. In this era of swipe to the next page, gift yourself a minute.
A minute to consider the fact that right now, this weekend and maybe for plenty more weekends to come, three New Zealanders from small towns are the best, or in the conversation to be the best, at what they do in the horse racing world.
Three of ours, a horse, a jockey and a trainer. Beating all of theirs.
Enjoy this era because it can’t last forever.
Because this is not even remotely normal.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.