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Another successful Sa Sa Ladies' Day was capped with a win by a horse carrying one of the variations of the famous black, white and pink colours of the Kwok family, the meeting's primary sponsor, as Beauty Only made it two from two and gave his big race credentials a boost with a tough Class Two win.
More than 70,000 fans, many of them once a year female racegoers donning the latest fashions and fascinators, turned out at Sha Tin for what has become a highlight of the social calendar and a success story for the Jockey Club and the Kwok family's Sa Sa beauty store chain.
Beauty Only's trainer Tony Cruz said he was happy to deliver the Kwok family a win but had his eyes fixed on another big day, specifically Hong Kong Derby day, for his import.
"He won over a mile today but he needs further and there is only one race I am thinking of for him - we will have him screwed down for the Derby, that's the big one," Cruz said after the son of Holy Roman Emperor put his rating into the 90s with a gusty short-head victory. "He only won by a whisker. Gate one helped him today but he has become a much stronger horse than I ever thought he would be. He really wants 1,800m or 2,000m."
Cruz said he will bypass the Hong Kong Classic Mile on the way to the Derby with Beauty Only, but he would step out over a mile again next start in the Chevalier Cup at the end of the month.
Winning jockey Neil Callan is building a deadly strike rate with Cruz, winning with four of their last 11 starters together. Callan agreed with the trainer's thoughts that Beauty Only - a winner over 1,800m as a two-year-old in Italy - would relish the chance to race over further.
"He is crying out for more ground. He is the type of horse that if he were still in Europe, he would already be racing over a mile and a quarter," he said. "The way they are trained here and the way the race programme is, he has to start out at the shorter distances. It's a build-up process and you have to get more speed into them."
Callan said although Beauty Only had "got more worked up" in the pre-race parade ring than he had before his first-up victory, the gelding's gate speed improved slightly at start number two.
"He just got a little bit warm, that can happen with them second time out - first time they are looking around and soaking it all in," Callan said. "He can jump up slightly at the start, but he was quickly into stride today. They rolled along at a steady pace and I got a little bit blocked and I had to do some manoeuvres to get into clear running, but once he got out, he was always going to do his best work late."
"He is going to keep improving and I like what he is doing over a mile, when it is clear he needs further."