Variety Club rules in Hong Kong

VARIETY Club well and truly stamped himself as one of the best milers to ever be produced in South Africa with a stunning performance in yesterday’s Gr 1 HK$12million Champions Mile at Sha Tin in Hong Kong, where he annihilated a top class field by four lengths under regular pilot Anton Marcus.

This was the five-year-old Var entire’s first run for Mike de Kock and he became the first foreign horse in 14 runnings of this prestigious international event to emerge victorious.

Variety Club appeared to relish the return to turf, after two wins and a second on tapeta in Dubai, and this was likely a career best performance.

He showed his usual phenomenal gatespeed and that coupled with his high cruising speed saw him bounding into an early lead. He was soon joined by rank outsider Helene Spirit. The latter then took over, but Variety Club sat at his quarter in second without ever having to break his machinelike stride.

He was showing his usual signs of loving every minute of the race. Marcus brought him to the centre in the straight and he then quickened away from the pack and the massive crowd were soon embracing a new hero.

The hot favourite, the John Moore-trained Able Friend, who won the Gr 1 Hong Kong Classic Mile in January, didn’t have the best passage, having been caught wide early and then having to come from some way back under Joao “Magic” Moreira. The field concertinaed turning for home and he overtook most of them, but made no impression on Variety Club, who was pulling further clear at the line.