Korea Expert - Alastair Middleton

Alastair Middleton, a British living in Seoul since 2006. With his passion in horse racing, he started his racing blog in 2007 which immensely popular with fans around the world trying to learn more about Korean racing. Alastair is familiar with Korean racing that providing racing insights for its races on his blog, like racecard, race-preview in English. He is currently appointed by Korea Racing Authority as the English-language racecaller for the races at Seoul and Busan.

Expert Column for Korea Sprint (S1-1) (Alastair Middleton)

S1-1 Korea Sprint

The Korea Sprint promises to be a challenging race for punters, bringing together as it does, seven overseas and nine Korea-trained horses on the sand at Seoul Racecourse.

And that sand surface can be crucial. Singapore’s EL PADRINO thrived on it when winning the race (known then as the Asia Challenge Cup) in 2014 and finishing runner-up to CHOEGANG SCHILLER in 2015, but other visitors have not always found its depth and kickback so accommodating. All the overseas horses arrived well in advance so all will be familiar with the surface when they line up on Sunday but once the race starts, it can be a leveler.

That said, we’ll be expecting the foreign horses to take the spoils here and three in particular stand out. Hong Kong’s SUPER JOCKEY, 2nd and 5th in the last two runnings of the G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen, looked very well in a Sha Tin trial prior to departure, has drawn well in gate 2 and under Karis Teetan, has a very good chance here. In sparkling form though is Singapore’s SUPER WINNER. He comes in following three straight victories at Kranji across the summer, most recently on 28th August, when he won a tight finish over this distance on the polytrack and it would not be a surprise if he goes well here.

Completing the top tier of visitors is US G1 winner WILD DUDE. He won the G2 Kona Gold Stakes over 1,300m at Santa Anita in May with a ground-saving run along the rail and having travelled well, could be very dangerous on his first outing for Irish trainer Michael Halford.

The Japanese pair of MILLION VOLTS and GRAPE BRANDY should be able to cope with the track and both enter in fair, if unspectacular, form. MILLION VOLTS will benefit from Kanichiro Fujii in the saddle, who has partnered a number of big-race winners on this track before. Meanwhile, UAE challengers BEACHY HEAD and ART WAVE had no luck in the draw and look up against it from wide gates.

Among the Korean trained runners, PERDIDO POMEROY is the one who bears the most weight of expectation. He beat CHOEGANG SCHILLER – winner of last year’s Asia Challenge Cup – and GAMDONGUIBADA into 2nd and 3rd in the Korea-Japan Cup over 1,200m at Seoul in June. Given a rest over the summer to avoid the worst of the heat, PERDIDO POMEROY impressed in an August trial and if he runs to his best, the lightly raced three-year-old can give this a real go from the gate and perhaps sneak into the money. We’ll be looking for creditable performances from the other two as well.

MACHEON BOLT enters in good shape but hasn’t drawn especially well and will need some luck while Korean Oaks winner OTTUG OTTUGI is the wildcard. She has a good draw and will be on speed early. Whether she has the quality to live with the seasoned internationals late on is another matter. SUPREME MAGIC and BICHUI JEONGSANG are both closers and while solid on the sand, they have plenty to find. FIRST MAGICAL is another who didn’t perhaps get the ideal draw. He’s only raced four times, winning three of them, and will need to be on the early speed.

It’s going to be competitive but we’ll go with SUPER JOCKEY to score for Hong Kong.

SELECTIONS: 2. SUPER JOCKEY, 10. WILD DUDE, 9. SUPER WINNER & 8. PERDIDO POMEROY

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