Kiwis Claim HK Champions Mile

New Zealand Bloodstock and Kiwi vendors had plenty to be proud of at Sha Tin last night with horses sold through Karaka winning half of the elite ten-race card, including the Group 1 Champions Mile with Sight Winner.

Sight Winner (Faltaat - Kinjinette, by Kinjite), ridden by Brett Prebble for the very first time in the Group 1 feature, tracked the free-going Karaka graduate Egyptian Ra (Woodborough - Egyptian Queen, by Karioi Lad) before Prebble brought Sight Winner to attack at the top of the lengthy Sha Tin straight.

In the absence of challenges to the Kiwi pair from the likes of Good Ba Ba and Collection, John Size's Sight Winner and a mighty Egyptian Ra fought all the way down to the wire, Sight Winner finally getting his nose down on the line to score by a short-head in a time of 1.34.97.

The win was Sight Winner's seventh from twenty-two starts, his first at Group 1 level, with the NZ $60,000 yearling purchase now accruing over HK$12,000,000.

Sight Winner was bred and sold by Westbury Stud at the 2005 Karaka Premier Sale where he was purchased by Queensland-based bloodstock agent John Foote.

Faltaat is represented by three weanlings, one mare, and as a covering sire at New Zealand Bloodstock's National Weanling, Broodmare & Mixed Bloodstock Sale on May 4, 5, and 6.

The son of Faltaat who had previously placed in the HK-2 Cathay Pacific International Mile Trial is the second NZB graduate to win the race in the past three years, with Karaka Ready to Run Sale graduate Able One (Cape Cross - Gardenia, by Danehill) winning the 2007 event.

Both Sight Winner and Able One have relatives in Karaka's May Sale.