 Alastair Middleton's Bio | |
|---|---|
| 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. | |
Seoul Racecourse – Track Analysis (Korea Cup Day)
Seoul Racecourse comprises an outer track of 1800m and an inner track of 1600m with chutes for races over 1000m, 1400m and 1600m. The average width is 25m, opening out to 30m in the 400m home straight. Racing is conducted left-handed with the long home straight giving all a fair chance. The surface is sand and there can be plenty of kickback. The home turn is slightly downhill before rising gently from the 400m.
Five races on sand from the Korea Cup Day will be simulcast to Hong Kong.
The 1600m Class 3 Handicap starts from a small chute between the 1st and 2nd corners on the outer track. Because of the very short run to the turn, field size is capped at ten. A new distance for Seoul, it has only been used eighteen times to date and all but five of those have attracted full fields. It is a small sample, but only one of those eighteen races has been won by a horse drawn wider than gate 7 while eleven have been won by horses drawn between 1 and 3. Horses are turning almost immediately from the gate making it hard for those drawn wide to get to the lead. They straighten up at the 1300m point where any horse still wide will be at a disadvantage. The field then makes a 450m straight run into a sweeping 450m turn before entering the 400m home straight.
The two 1400m Class 4 Handicaps begin on a chute that extends the back straight by 100m. That means runners have a full 550m straight to find their preferred position before the 450m turn into the 400m home straight.
The G3 1200m Korea Sprint starts in the back-straight of the outer track with a 350m run into a sweeping 450m corner before they enter the 400m home straight. In the four Korea Sprint races run to date, the winners have emerged from gates 2, 7, 9 and 13 indicating that the draw is not the be all and end all of a horse’s chance. Three of those winners, SUPER JOCKEY in 2016, GRACEFUL LEAP in 2017 and BLUE CHIPPER in 2019, were ridden on or handy to the speed but in 2018, MOANIN settled towards the back of the field before coming wide and sweeping home to deny Hong Kong’s FIGHT HERO, who employed similar tactics, by a head on the line.
The G3 1800m Korea Cup starts on the inner track in front of the grandstand, and has a 250m run to the corner, which on the inner track is a little tighter at 350m. Still on the inner track, they head into the back straight of 450m. There is then another 350m turn for home before they link up with the main outer course for the 400m home straight. Winners of the four previous Korea Cup have started from gates 3, 11 (twice) and 14. Those winners and the placed horses have tended to settle midfield or better although in general 1800m races at Seoul the winners can come from anywhere.
Both the Korea Sprint and Korea Cup were suspended due to the pandemic in the past two years. Despite the absence of the Japanese representatives in the 2019 Korea Cup, it was still a competitive edition with the participation of the American G1 place-getter LONE SAILOR, the Dubai World Cup Carnival winner DOLKONG as well as the HONG KONG-trained GLORIOUS ARTIST. The race was run on muddy ground. KING OF GLORY broke fast and GLORIOUS ARTIST followed him. However, MOONHAK CHIEF tried to take the lead from the middle of the backstretch and never looked back for an easy score. CHEONGDAM DOKKI and AMBASSADORIAL, thought kept on well in the late stages, could only finish a non-threatening second and third. GLORIOUS ARTIST, who was one-paced in the finished, just lost out on a place and got a fourth.
The weather forecast suggests cloudy days in Seoul early this week. However, this year’s Korea Cup Day would be contested on muddy ground due to the possible rainfall on Sunday. Therefore, weather condition will be of utmost importance for final selections.
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