O’Reilly filly on a trail of gold after debut win

Ambitious Dragon completed a golden night in Hong Kong for WS when he won yesterday’s Gr 1 Hong Kong Derby at Sha Tin. The exciting son of resident stallion Pins raced away with the 2000 metre feature for trainer Tony Millard and jockey Maxime Guyon.

The French rider has struck up an outstanding association with the four-year-old and at their previous appearance last month had combined to land the Gr 1 Classic Cup – Guyon had confidently predicted a Derby victory after that success and so it proved last night. Ambitious Dragon, who has now won six of his 11 starts, is out of Oregon mare Golden Gamble who is from the family of the Gr 2 Concorde Handicap winner Needuask, who also finished runner-up in the Gr 1 Railway Handicap.

Earlier on the programme, the WS-stud bred and sold Forest Star downed his class three rivals over 1400 metres for the trainer-jockey combination of Tony Cruz and Jeff Lloyd. A $140,000 Premier Sale buy at Karaka in 2007 for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, he is a half-brother to the Listed New Zealand St Leger winner Ritzy Lady.

They are out of the winning Centaine mare Ever Clever who is a half-sister to the South African Gr 3 winner Hancock Park (Pompeii Court). Forest Star has now won four times in Hong Kong.