Dylan Thomas The Unanimous Vote In International Handicappers´ Conference

Dylan Thomas was the overwhelming pick of the 12 International and the three Hong Kong Handicappers to collect the CXHK Vase at the International Conference at Sha Tin on Friday morning. All selected the horse to win with fellow Europeans Doctor Dino, Quijano and Red Rocks to fight out the minor places. The race has been largely the preserve of the Europeans with 11 of the 13 winners from that continent. None of the other contestants received a single vote to feature in the HK$ 14 million stayers race.

Irish handicapper Garry O´Gorman while describing Dylan Thomas as head and shoulders above the field felt that he could be vulnerable after his long and arduous season and did express some reservations.

In the CXHK Sprint the panel were less unanimous with 9 handicappers selecting the flying Australian mare Miss Andretti and six siding with local star Sacred Kingdom. There was support for Absolute Champion to feature in the first three as well, but little support for the rest of the field.

Australian handicapper Greg Carpenter said of Miss Andretti, 'She has great acceleration, is highly competitive and has a great will to win. The negatives are that it´s her first time right handed, she´s away from home and perhaps the fast times that horses have been running here at Sha Tin. '

The overall view of the handicappers was that this year´s renewal of the CXHK Sprint was the best ever and O´Gorman pointed out that although UK Sprinter Benbaun was rated higher than last year, he might still finish worse than his third place of 2006.

Handicappers were divided on the likely outcome of the CXHK Mile where three-year-old filly Darjina was taken to win by 10 of the panellists but there was also support for three-year-old male Excellent Art and Kongo Rikishio of the overseas horses while Good Ba Ba and Floral Pegasus were the pick of the local runners. UK Handicapper Phillip Smith went against the trend by nominating Spirito del Vento from France as his idea of the winner. 'For me he´s an improving type, he´s lightly raced and unexposed and I think there´s more to come.' In the past, 12 three-year-olds have run in the mile with one successful and three placed.

The Japanese Handicapper Kazuhito Matano felt that the Japanese hope Kongo Rikishio had an outstanding chance if allowed an easy lead from stall one.

The $20 million CXHK Cup, the show case event of Sunday´s card, may be low in numbers but it is high in quality in the view of the international panel who took local stars Vengeance of Rain, Viva Pataca to fight it out from Godolphin´s international challenger Ramonti. Hong Kong senior handicapper Nigel Gray surprised some by picking Ramonti over the local pair, but reasoned that while in Hong Kong terms this was the ´clash of the titans,´ he felt that there might be a slow pace in the race, which could favour Ramonti.