Victor Supreme blows away Sha Tin rivals, emerges as Derby prospect

Victor Supreme announced himself as a Derby horse at Sha Tin on Saturday, powering away from Class 4 rivals by 4 1/2 lengths and giving Ricky Yiu a colt to build around for Hong Kong’s biggest three-year-old and four-year-old tests. The Super Seth gelding did it in the 1.17 million Hong Kong dollar Ip Jug Handicap, a 1800-metre turf race on the C+3 course for Class 4 runners rated 60 to 40, and he did it with authority under Vincent Ho while carrying 125 pounds.

Yiu did not need much convincing after that. He had thought Victor Supreme might measure up by a length or two, but the margin was far wider, and the trainer said the gelding would be aimed at the 2027 BMW Hong Kong Derby as part of the Four-Year-Old Classic Series. That series now sits at the center of the conversation around the horse: the Hong Kong Classic Mile will be run over 1600 metres, the Hong Kong Classic Cup over 1800 metres, and the Derby over 2000 metres, with the 2027 renewal set to be the 150th running and carrying a record HK$28 million.

The Derby path looks especially credible because Victor Supreme finished Saturday with signs of stamina rather than speed alone. Yiu described him as an up-and-coming long-distance horse, and even a mile may prove sharp for him, which is exactly the kind of profile Hong Kong horsemen look for when a horse begins to climb through the Classic distances. Victor Supreme is currently rated 49, down from a start-of-season mark of 52, and he has now turned a routine handicap into an early marker for next season’s Classic narrative.

Yiu’s four-win Sha Tin afternoon was not built on one horse alone. Rising Force took the Class 2 Li Cup Handicap over 1200 metres with Zac Purton aboard and picked up a HK$1 million PPG bonus, while Lucrative Eight and Chill Easy added to a stable tally that keeps moving upward. The trainer’s 2026 season total reached 44 wins after the July 4 meeting, a figure that underlines the point that Victor Supreme emerged from a stable already firing.

That matters because Yiu knows this road. The Hong Kong Jockey Club lists him as the 2019/20 champion trainer with 67 wins, and his recent totals of 53 in 2021/22 and 60 in 2023/24 show the same sustained level of output. He also won the 2023 BMW Hong Kong Derby with Voyage Bubble, a reminder that this is not a yard guessing at long-range targets. The Derby remains Hong Kong’s one-shot race for four-year-olds, and Victor Supreme has now given Yiu another horse that looks capable of joining that lane early.