Hong Kong racing tips: Jim McGrath with three selections at Happy Valley on Wednesday

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Fortune Star
1.10 Happy Valley
2pts win

The Perfect Match
1.45 Happy Valley
2pts win

Blue Illusion
2.15 Happy Valley
2pts win

Aptly-named The Perfect Match can land another blow for James McDonald and Danny Shum by taking the Class 4 6f handicap sprint (1.45) on a trappy nine-race card at Happy Valley.

The Perfect Match has plenty of talent but he has been campaigned cautiously by Shum because of a tendency to break blood vessels. On his last start two months ago, he was scoped post-race at the trainer’s request and found to have blood in the trachea.

On that occasion, he finished third to King Glorioso and Thunder Prince, beaten a nose and a short head, over course and distance, and was the subject of a lengthy entry in the stewards’ report on an eventful race.

The five-year-old is from one of New Zealand’s top families of recent decades, with his dam Thunderchine, a sister to Australasian Oaks winner Tully Thunder, being a prolific producer of good racehorses. The Perfect Match is 1-9 but there is better to come. Goko Win is his danger.

Mark Newnham should be rewarded for stretching Fortune Star out in distance to 1m1f for the first time in the Class 4 handicap (1.10), in which the Caspar Fownes stalwart Nearly Fine, with Hugh Bowman aboard, appears next best.

Once they start racing beyond a mile in Hong Kong, pedigree often gives a few clues about what to expect.  While Fortune Star is by the July Cup winner US Navy Flag, he is out of a Dalakhani mare, out of a Zabeel mare, so there is stamina on his mother’s side of the family and it could be very useful here.

Fortune Star is 0-8 and has been second in three of his last four starts, over an extended mile. He gets the opportunity to capitalise here despite a wide draw. Luke Ferraris has ridden him in all but one of his starts and knows him well.

Blue Illusion, who broke his duck in Hong Kong at 97-1 on last outing, won’t be at those odds in the Class 3 5f handicap (2.15), but he will still be a value winning chance again if Richard Kingscote can get a little cover early. 

Happy Valley Placepot perm

12.10
1 Top Time
5 Made For Life

12.40
2 King Oberon
6 Thunder Prince

1.10
2 Nearly Fine
10 Fortune Star

1.45
2 Goko Win
4 The Perfect Match

2.15
4 Blue Illusion
6 Love Together

2.50
2 South Star
6 Super Unicorn

2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64 lines

Bets can be placed into Hong Kong pools with the Tote. The first race at Happy Valley on Wednesday is at 10.40am. 

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