“While it wasn’t that serious, it still wasn’t looking great on Sunday because we have to gallop him this week to have him ready for the race and I was initially concerned just in case the hoof didn’t improve enough for us to do that.
“But thankfully, the last 24 hours has seen enormous improvement.”
The hoof had improved enough for El Vencedor to first jog on a treadmill on Monday morning before doing easy pacework, after which Hong Kong Jockey Club veterinarians trotted him up and he was perfectly sound.
“The club has been great to deal with,” says Marsh.
“We have had as much help as we could possibly need from farriers and vets so he has been looked after really well.
“So we are back on track now and it just means a little rejigging of his schedule this week.”
El Vencedor was to have galloped twice this week but will instead now do one piece of faster work on Thursday morning, which the Cambridge trainer is comfortable with.
“We are lucky in that he was very fit before we sent him up here.
“He had those three Group 1s in a month in February and March and then had a trial at Ellerslie and an exhibition gallop at Te Rapa.
“So I am pretty confident a good blow on Thursday will bring him on and we will have him right for Sunday.
“One of the great things is he is a hardened campaigner who has been around and it is not like he is a young three-year-old learning the ropes.
“He is used to going to work and getting on with it.”
El Vencedor will have champion Hong Kong jockey Zac Purton aboard on Sunday and meets a strong international field, even though local hero Romantic Warrior won’t be in the 2000m Group 1.
The two Japanese-trained horses who placed behind Romantic Warrior in the Hong Kong Cup in December, Liberty Island and Tastiera, will be among El Vencedor’s rivals on Sunday, as will outstanding French galloper Goliath and Hong Kong Derby winner Cap Ferrat.
Goliath won one of England’s great races, the King George IV and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot last July, beating among others Bluestocking, Rebels Romance and Dubai Honour, whose recent Sydney form is vastly superior to anything El Vencedor has competed against.
“We know it isn’t going to be easy but it is a huge thrill to give him his opportunity and he has earned his right to be here,” says Marsh.
While El Vencedor is the only New Zealand-trained horse at Sunday’s huge meeting, the Kiwi flag will still be flown high by Mr Brightside in the Champions Mile, while former NZ galloper Ka Ying Rising is red hot to win the Chairman’s Sprint.
Expat superstar jockey James McDonald will also ride at the meeting, including favourite Voyage Bubble in the Mile.
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.
