I miss Murray Bell on the South China Morning Post sooooo much (he was such a nice man. You wouldn't believe the questions he would answer and this pictures he'd send) BUT hooray for this writer, Mr. Cox.
This is a little on the idiot owner of Good Ba Ba and he sure interjects some comedy.
http://racing.scmp.com/freeservice/n...20121011aa.asp
Yuen went away from his usual imaginative prefix for his horse names - "Good" - when he named Thunder General - a gelding by Indian Charlie he purchased for a whopping HK$5 million at the Hong Kong International Sale this year. Buying an "ISG" is a sure-fire, but exceedingly expensive, way to jump the queue into the highly sought-after ownership ranks and Good Ba Ba is by far the best-performed graduate in the sales' history.
But even with that previous success, and by Yuen's behaviour at the 2012 auction was bizarre. The 26 horses for this year's ISG were paraded for potential buyers before being paired-up and given exhibition gallops at Sha Tin a week before the sale, and this is when lot 10, a handsome three-year-old by Indian Charlie, showed a sign of things to come.
Whether it was a lack of willingness or co-ordination, or a bit of both, his action was awful and he couldn't keep up. Tectonic plates move faster than Thunder General did that day and most observers were keen to see who, or if anyone, would put their hand up to buy the slow coach.
Come the big day, Yuen didn't put his hand up, as such, or even have a rival bidder, but stunned everyone when he held up a piece of paper with $5 million written on it.
Thunder General produced an accordingly amazing performance in his first trial - amazing because it doesn't seem possible to be beaten more than 65 lengths in an 800m contest while actually galloping in the right direction.
But Danny Shum Chap-shing is obviously a talented trainer, and he improved the gelding next time out, as he was beaten just 41 lengths. Tuesday's effort might end the current tenure with the trainer though - he was beaten by a new personal best 89 3/4 lengths, and was moving so slowly that by the end of it the theme from Chariots Of Fire started playing in the background.
A good read on the "already despised owner".
And i thought the Macau zillionaire who owned all the Viva horses was insane!
Poor Good Ba Ba. Hopefully someone steps in and offeres a fortune and then sends him to Living Legends (cough, cough Mr. Wong Wing, the overly kind owner of Bullish Luck perhaps?).
Oh well it never hurts to wish for such happy endings.