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Hong Kong Jockey Club

After leading a tour group of clients to last year’s Hong Kong International Races, Australia’s biggest trainer Ciaron Maher will return to the 2024 Sha Tin showpiece Dec. 8. This time around he’ll be mixing business with pleasure.

While there will again be a large contingent of Maher’s clients as members of his touring party at Sha Tin and also at the International Jockeys’ Championship at Happy Valley on Dec. 4, the big difference this year is the prolific winning trainer will have his first runner in Hong Kong when 5-year-old gelding Recommendation tackles a crack field in the Group 1, US$3.3 million Hong Kong Sprint covering about six furlongs.

Nobals has final workout before going to Hong Kong.

The field will include 2023 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Nobals, who is due to arrive in Hong Kong on Sunday.

Recommendation has yet to win at the highest level but has four Group 3 victories, including three in succession at Caulfield this year. Two of his Group wins have been at 5 1/2 furlongs and two at six.

His overall record is 22: 9-3-4. A third at his most recent start in the five-furlong, listed Century Stakes at Flemington on Nov. 7 lifted his prize money to about US$670,000.

Maher has more than 400 horses in work at his Victoria and New South Wales stables, which are getting bigger. He recorded one of the operation’s biggest pay days when Duke De Sessa won the 1 1/2-mile, US$3.3 million Caulfield Cup (G1) and Bella Nipotina won the six-furlong, US$13 million Everest the same day Oct. 19.

After getting a taste of the big feature races last year, Maher was keen to return to Hong Kong with his clients and is enthusiastic about the opportunity of having a runner in one of the four Group 1 races at Sha Tin.

“Got a heap of clients coming up, and all the owners are pretty well up and about,” Maher said. “The horse seems in good form, but the local (Ka Ying Rising) might be hard to beat. … (Recommendation) is a gelding that has had a really good spring and has gone to another level, and the owners were keen to travel with him.”

Maher said he is expecting to get some advice from his former co-trainer David Eustace, who has made a successful start as a trainer on his own after being granted a training license by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

“I will be catching up with Dave for sure, and he has started very well,” Maher said. “And we’ll be having a chat for sure.”

Maher said he wasn’t surprised when Eustace grabbed the opportunity of training in his own right when offered a training license in Hong Kong.

“He was a great asset to our business, and it’s good to see him starting quite well,” he said.

Maher and Eustace combined to win more than 1,560 races and 30 Group 1 victories, including Gold Trip’s 2022 Melbourne Cup win at about two miles.

At this stage Maher said there hadn’t been a definite booking for a rider for Recommendation, but it could be Mark Zahra, who also will ride 2023 Melbourne Cup winner Without A Fight, a leading contender in the 1 1/2-mile Hong Kong Vase (G1).

Maher said he definitely would like to return to Hong Kong to contest more future feature races if he rates his first foray as a success.

“Plenty of people have traveled over there before, and it will be good to take Recommendation up, and I’m looking forward to the challenge,” he said.

Maher will arrive in Hong Kong on Sunday to supervise Recommendation’s work leading up to the race.

Coverage at Horse Racing Nation of the entire Hong Kong Thoroughbred season is made possible through a sponsorship by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.