Cream rises in Honkers

It took only six meetings this new season for the cream to rise to the top again on the Hong Kong jockeys’ premiership; Brett Prebble and Douglas Whyte each riding a treble at Happy Valley last night to settle in the lead.

Australian Prebble, who combined his treble with 33rd birthday celebrations, is on top with eight wins from South African Whyte with seven. Another Australia, Zac Purton, is next on six, but was absent serving the first night of a two-meeting suspension.

Darren Beadman, one winner this season, was among four jockeys to cop suspensions last night, and he will miss the meetings on October 6 and 10.

Whyte’s winners were copybook rides on the tight Happy Valley track – he gave Fresh Air, Ho Wongchoy and Joyful Joyful the run of the race and pulled them off heels entering the straight. None was for his main supporter, John Size, who, as usual, is a slow starter with only one win in the six meetings.

Prebble rode a double for Caspar Fownes (My Way and Prime Target) and one for Australian David Hall (Vaugirard, who was odds-on favourite). Fownes is well clear on the trainers’ table with 11 wins – next best, YS Tsui, has five. Hall has two.

Prebble’s Group 1 sprint mount, Hong Kong’s Australian-bred champion Sacred Kingdom (b g 7, Encosta De Lago-Courtroom Sweetie, by Zeditave), was to barrier trial over 1000 metres on the turf at Sha Tin today on the way to his racing return in the Group 3 Sha Tin Trophy over the same course next Friday.

Sacred Kingdom has been out since a colic attack stopped him going to Japan for a big sprint in March. If his campaign goes as planned he will clash with Singapore’s best sprinter Rocket Man in the Group 1 Cathay Pacific International Sprint (1200m) at Sha Tin on December 12.

The Singapore Turf Club’s website reports that Rocket Man (b g 5, Viscount-Macrosa (NZ), by McGinty) has put weight back on after concern over his condition forced the cancellation of a trip to Japan for the Group 1 Sprinters Stakes over 1200m at Nakayama next month.

Trainer Patrick Shaw reported that Rocket Man weighed-in at 474kg on Wednesday morning, 3kg above the weight he was a week ago. His next race will be the Group 3 Garden City Trophy (1200m) at Kranji on October 15, by which time Shaw hopes to have the gelding weighing 478-480kg.

“I want to get a bit more weight on him before he runs on October 15, as that will give us something to work with before his trip to Hong Kong,” Shaw said.

This weekend: Singapore races tonight and on Sunday; Hong Kong races on Sunday. Australian pay television shows the meetings.

Photo: Brett Prebble winning on Sacred Kingdom at Sha Tin.