Will Man change approach after Sweynesse’s injury?

World’s highest-rated sprinter will get the longest break of his career after suffering setback

It’s a funny old game, is racing. Less than 24 hours after feeling what would surely have been a certain level of vindication after winning Sunday’s Group Two Sprint Cup (1,200m) with Lucky Sweynesse, trainer Manfred Man

Ka-leung now faces an anxious wait to see if his champion will return from injury anywhere near the same horse.

There are plenty who will say Man got what was coming after his relentless campaigning of the world’s highest-rated sprinter and the 66-year-old wouldn’t be human if he hasn’t wrestled with his decision to target just about every lead-up race possible between his superstar’s main targets.

One thing that can’t be questioned is the class and courage of Lucky Sweynesse, who dug deep to win the Sprint Cup despite suffering a fractured cannon bone, which Man thinks happened when he stumbled upon straightening for home.

After a day when Chateau was humanely euthanised after sustaining a catastrophic injury and Adios suffered a fatal bleed, the main thing is that Man and connections still have a horse.

Most interesting now will be to sit back and observe any change in approach from Man should Lucky Sweynesse make it back to the races after a thoroughly deserved rest.

One would hope that after his enforced lay-off – perhaps up at Man’s newly minted Conghua stable – the four-time Group One winner will be handled a little more delicately if he is asked to go back to the well.

After all, Man has now met the criteria to train until he’s 70, if he chooses, by having “multiple individual pattern race winners including at least one international Group One winner” in the three seasons before he turned 66, a requirement Lucky Sweynesse did the bulk of the heavy lifting to meet.

Perhaps a little reset and the best proof yet that his superstar isn’t a machine will see Man narrow his focus a little and concentrate a touch more on quality rather than quantity.

In the meantime, Lucky Sweynesse’s absence throws the Group One Chairman’s Sprint Prize (1,200m) wide open. If you’d said earlier this season that then-struggling miler California Spangle would be the headline act, you would rightly have been laughed off.

But, after winning the Group One Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup (1,400m) and Group One Al Quoz Sprint (1,200m) in March, the born-again galloper certainly brings much of the intrigue to a race where the international contingent looks set to be headed by Japan’s Mad Cool.

Eighth in December’s Group One Hong Kong Sprint (1,200m), four and a half lengths behind Lucky Sweynesse, Mad Cool bounced back to win the Group One Takamatsunomiya Kinen (1,200m) on home soil last month, defeating Hong

Kong’s third placegetter, Victor The Winner, by three lengths.

While California Spangle and Victor The Winner will be first up off their international raids and needing to prove they have returned in good order, David Hall-trained pair Invincible Sage and Flying Ace bring the local form after placing behind Lucky Sweynesse on Sunday. Should one of California Spangle, Victor The Winner or Mad Cool prevail, as early markets expect, it will be the first time since 2018 that the Chairman’s Sprint Prize winner hasn’t entered the race from a run in the Sprint Cup. Even more likely is that we didn’t see the Group One Champions Mile or Group One QE II Cup (2,000m) winner at Sha Tin on Sunday. As good as it was to see Beauty Joy rewarded with a much-deserved breakthrough victory in the Group Two Chairman’s Trophy (1,600m), the return of the likes of Golden Sixty, Romantic Warrior, Voyage Bubble and Galaxy Patch – on top of raiders like Dubai Honour, Prognosis and Obamburumai – will ensure things are much hotter in the kitchen come April 28.