Fabre lands record-breaking fourth Hong Kong Vase as Sosie battles to success
Legendary French trainer Andre Fabre was celebrating a record fourth win in the Hong Kong Vase (Gr 1, 2400m) on Sunday after watching his last-start Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (Gr 1, 2400m) third, Sosie (Sea The Stars) score a rousing success in the opener of four Hong Kong International Races.
Fabre had been sitting alongside fellow maestro Aidan O’Brien on three wins in the Vase after sending out Borgia (Acatenango) (1999), Flintshire (Dansili) (2014) and Junko (Intello) (2023) to victory in the HK$26 million (approx. AU$5.02 million) event, but surpassed his Irish counterpart on Sunday.
Sosie headed into the Vase having had a very successful 2025 campaign in his native France, with the only blip coming when last of six in the Coral-Eclipse (Gr 1, 1m 2f) on unsuitably fast ground at Sandown in the UK.
Those ground concerns could have been a slight niggle again with Sha Tin officially described as ‘good’ ground, but any fears were dispelled when Sosie battled to success in a hard-fought finish between four top-class rivals.
Ridden by Maxime Guyon, the four-year-old son of Sea The Stars (Cape Cross) settled in midfield off a slow tempo before making headway approaching the home turn. Hitting the front with over a furlong to race, Sosie was tackled on all sides by last year’s Vase winner Giavellotto (Mastercraftsman), Resolute Racing’s Goliath (Adlerflug) and Australian Bloodstock’s Al Riffa (Wootton Bassett).
However, it was Fabre’s runner that would prevail as he gamely found plenty under pressure to run out a three-quarter lengths victor over Giavellotto, with the Francis Graffard-trained Goliath a further half-length back in third and Al Riffa another neck back in fourth.
“Everything went perfectly,” Fabre’s wife Elisabeth said. “The race unfolded perfectly, he had a great trip and Maxime knows his horse very well, while Sosie had trust in him when he asked him for his effort.
“He is a very good horse with a wonderful mind and a lot of natural energy. He is magnificent to look at and he will stay in training next year.”
Winning rider Guyon echoed those thoughts. “Everything went very smoothly,” he said. “I followed Los Angeles for three-quarters of the race, but halfway round the home turn, Ryan’s [Moore] horse began to falter. This horse can really sustain his run, and he is such a hard horse to pass,” he said.
“The horse has such a great temperament and he is so easy to put anywhere in a race.”
Sosie was adding a fourth career Group 1 win to his tally – alongside victories in the Grand Prix de Paris (Gr 1, 2400m), Prix Ganay (Gr 1, 2100m) and Prix d’Ispahan (Gr 1, 1800m), and extended an impressive career record to seven wins and a further four placings from 13 starts.
“It’s his fourth career Group 1 and he was in such great shape,” Guyon added. “We know he is capable of winning big races like this, and this year he has won at the top level over 1850 metres [in the Ispahan], 2100 metres [Ganay] and now the 2400 metres.
“He is an incredible horse. This was the first time he’d travelled across continents, and yet he’s been relaxed every morning this week, and he’s looked amazing.”
Giavellotto’s trainer Marco Botti was proud of his gelding’s effort in defeat, bidding for a second-straight win in the race. “As we thought beforehand, it wasn’t going to be a strong pace. Andrea [Atzeni, jockey] said he thought the winner had first run, but he got to his girth for second and I thought it was a good effort. The winner is a proper horse, and they’re two good horses,” he said.
Meanwhile, Al Riffa’s regular rider Dylan Browne McMonagle was also upbeat about the Joseph O’Brien-trained runner’s fourth-placed run, an effort that followed a seventh off 59-kilogram topweight in the Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) last month.
“He ran a super race. He wasn’t the quickest into stride from the gates which wasn’t ideal over this trip but he finished good,” Browne McMonagle said.