2025 Hong Kong Mile: Trends and storylines

Voyage Bubble is overshadowed by swashbuckling compatriots Romantic Warrior and Ka Ying Rising, but the defending Hong Kong Mile (G1) champion has compiled an historic resume of his own. 

Just the second horse to sweep Hong Kong’s Triple Crown, Voyage Bubble bids to join the exclusive club of repeat Mile winners in the $4.6 million renewal. 

Let’s revisit the race trends before focusing on the 2025 landscape.

Hong Kong Mile trends

Hong Kong-based milers have kept the trophy at home 19 of the past 23 years. Eight of those victories came courtesy of repeat winners. Good Ba Ba (2007-09) scored an unprecedented treble, eventually matched by Golden Sixty (2020-21, 2023). In between, Beauty Generation (2017-2018) hoisted back-to-back trophies.

Sixteen of those 19 local winners prepped in the Jockey Club Mile (G2). Eight won both the prep and the main event, including Voyage Bubble last year.

The two most notable exceptions to the Jockey Club Mile rule were both coming off long layoffs – Glorious Days (2013), who had not raced since winding up 11th in Japan’s Yasuda Kinen (G1), and Golden Sixty (2023), last seen landing the Champions Mile (G1) in the spring.

Trainer Tony Cruz is responsible for four wins with four different horses. California Spangle (2022) thwarted Golden Sixty by a neck, depriving that legend of a grand slam in the Mile. Cruz previously won with Lucky Owners (2003), Beauty Flash (2010), and Beauty Only (2016). 

Yet the pro-Hong Kong stat is not synonymous with favorites. Only seven favorites have won going back 24 years, and three were named Golden Sixty. In the same time span, nine winners went off at odds of 8-1 or greater, six of them at upwards of 15-1. 

In the past 20 years, only Japan has been able to interrupt the sequence of local winners. After Japanese shipper Hat Trick (2005), it took a decade for Maurice (2015) to follow suit, and the latest is Admire Mars (2019). Both Hat Trick and Maurice were wheeling back after taking the Mile Championship (G1) at Kyoto.

Admire Mars is the only sophomore to win the Mile, and New Zealand’s Sunline (2000) is unique on two counts, as a female and an Antipodean. Australian shippers won three times in the early years, when the race’s predecessor was conducted at about seven furlongs. 

No European has won since Firebreak (2004), a Godolphin runner who was technically listed under the United Arab Emirates banner. Firebreak is also the last winner to prep going shorter, having won the seven-furlong Challenge (G2) at Newmarket in his prior start.

Twelve of the past 22 winners were coming off victories, and 18 had cracked the trifecta last time out. Thus only four in this time frame were rebounding from an unplaced effort, including Beauty Flash, who was at least a solid fourth. 

Interestingly, outside draws have been preferable. In its 26-year history as a metric mile event, 11 winners broke from post 10 or wider. Only three winners were drawn in the first three posts, and none on the rail. 

Storylines for the Hong Kong Mile

Voyage Bubble shortens up to defend title

Blessed with tactical handiness and effectiveness over a range of distances, Voyage Bubble has been a top-caliber performer on this circuit. Yet precisely because he’s not a specialist miler, he doesn’t inspire unwavering confidence in his title defense.

Moreover, the Ricky Yiu trainee is trying to become the first Mile winner reverting in trip. Voyage Bubble has taken a different approach this year. Instead of tuning up in the Jockey Club Mile, he stretched out to about 1 1/4 miles for the Jockey Club Cup (G2), where he set a dawdling pace and got outkicked by Romantic Warrior. 

Similar cutbacks to a metric mile have not been a winning move in the past for Voyage Bubble. Following his victory in the 2023 Hong Kong Derby, he reverted for the Champions Mile (G1) and finished fourth to the legendary Golden Sixty. Earlier this year, Voyage Bubble attempted the same maneuver when dropping back from his Hong Kong Gold Cup (G1) triumph for the Champions Mile, only to be shocked by Red Lion. 

If Voyage Bubble can break the paradigm, he’d become the fourth repeat winner in the history of the Mile. 

Soul Rush looks to go one better in swan song

Japanese shipper Soul Rush, who overturned Romantic Warrior in the April 5 Dubai Turf (G1) on World Cup night, hopes to put an exclamation point on his career here. 

Creeping closer with each HKIR appearance, he was fourth to Golden Sixty and Voyage Bubble in the 2023 Mile and runner-up last December. Soul Rush followed the exact pattern in the Mile Championship at home, advancing from a fourth in the 2022 running to a near-miss in 2023 and a breakthrough victory in 2024. 

The one caveat about Soul Rush is that he did sustain an injury over the summer. The seven-year-old exited his third in the June 8 Yasuda Kinen (G1) (also to Jantar Mantar) with a “minor fracture.” His resuming third in the Oct. 18 Fuji (G2) signaled that he was back in business. 

Although sixth in his Mile Championship title defense last time out, Soul Rush had his work cut out for him from post 17. In the circumstances, he did well to be involved in a blanket finish for the minors, beaten only 2 1/2 lengths by the impressive Jantar Mantar.

Still, there remains a slight scruple about whether the midseason interruption cost him his best chance of winning another major. 

Sophomore filly Embroidery can make history for sire Admire Mars

The other Japanese contender, Embroidery, has an outstanding chance on merit, if not according to the trends. Like Voyage Bubble, she’s taking a quarter-mile drop in distance. Moreover, she’d be the first sophomore filly ever to win the Mile, and only the second female after Sunline.

Yet her own sire, Admire Mars, rewrote the record book himself when upsetting the 2019 Mile as a three-year-old. If his daughter can emulate him, Admire Mars would make history as the first Mile winner to sire one.

Embroidery won two-thirds of the Japanese fillies’ classics, the Oka Sho (Japanese 1000 Guineas) (G1) (her most recent try at this trip) and the about 1 1/4-mile Shuka Sho (G1) in her latest. Her worst loss was a non-staying ninth in the middle jewel, the Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) (G1) at about 1 1/2 miles.

In addition to Embroidery’s own qualities, the strength of her division at home is a plus. A couple of her beaten classic rivals just placed second and fourth to the high-class older filly Regaleira in the Queen Elizabeth II Cup (G1) at Kyoto, the sign of a cohort that can go on to better things. 

The Lion in Winter must buck trends

The lone three-year-old colt in the Mile, The Lion in Winter, has more than the demographic factor to overcome. He also has to buck the anti-European trends, and reverse the typical pattern for Aidan O’Brien pupils coming out of the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1). 

Of the five Ballydoyle runners who finished in the top three in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, all regressed to unplaced efforts in Hong Kong. O’Brien’s best result in the Hong Kong Mile is a fourth, courtesy of Mother Earth (2021), who was turning the page from her clunker in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. The Lion in Winter’s recent third at Del Mar therefore gives more pause than encouragement. 

British-based Docklands at least can lean on his recent participation in Japan’s Mile Championship, where he rallied from post 16 to finish a decent ninth. But he remains more of an Ascot aficionado, and you have to go back to the 2011 runner-up, Cityscape, to find the most recent British invader to factor. France’s Beauvatier is trying to add one more bullet point to his stallion ad, as his stud fee of €7,000 is already set. The last French contestant to reach the superfecta was fourth-placer Esoterique (2015). 

My Wish hopes to become the Classic Mile’s latest star graduate

As the reigning winner of the Hong Kong Classic Mile, My Wish has rightful ambitions to develop into a Group 1 performer. Such future greats as Golden Sixty and Romantic Warrior, as well as Voyage Bubble himself, all starred in that opening leg of the Four-Year-Old Series. 

My Wish enhanced those hopes by missing narrowly in the two longer races in the series, and he wasn’t beaten much when fourth in the Champions Mile. Kicking off the new Hong Kong season with two straight wins for Mark Newnham, who currently tops the trainers’ table by earnings, My Wish took a step backward when fourth in the Jockey Club Mile. 

But that remains the statistically key prep, and it would be no surprise if My Wish resumes his upward trajectory here. He has only a length to find on prep winner Galaxy Patch, a talented if frustrating closer who capitalized on a dream trip masterminded by James McDonald. Galaxy Patch could be galvanized again by McDonald, although he’d need things to fall into place for him for the second straight race.