Murtagh to ride Nice One Clare in Hong Kong Johnny Murtagh will maintain his profitable partnership with Nice One Clare in next month`s Hong Kong Sprint, it was revealed today.He will be back on board the mare whom he has ridden to victory in the Wokingham Handicap at Royal Ascot, a Listed race at Doncaster and the Diadem Stakes at Ascot.Those were all six or seven-furlong races while the Sha Tin contest on December 16th is over five furlongs -a trip the five-year-old has never previously tackled.Trainer Pip Payne said: 'Obviously she is going into the unknown by running over 1,000 metres but she loves coming off a fast pace on fast ground.'For a sprinter, she has not had a hard season and she is in very good form here. Johnny Murtagh, who has got on so well with her, will take the ride.'Payne, whose stable-star will fly out to Hong Kong next Monday, is looking forward to a longer stay in the territory than on his previous visit.'I have only spent 24 hours in Hong Kong in my life,' the Newmarket trainer recalled.'That was in 1968 when I was travelling horses to the Far East for the British Bloodstock Agency well before I set up as a trainer. I only saw Kowloon Bay.'
