Massive Sovereign, the 2024 Hong Kong Derby winner whose career has been repeatedly interrupted by injury, will begin a new phase on Sunday, July 12, when he makes his first start for Frankie Lor at the final Sha Tin meeting of the 2025/26 season.
For Lor, the focus is Massive Sovereign.
The six-year-old has been one of Hong Kong racing’s more intriguing comeback stories since his Derby triumph under Zac Purton in March 2024. That victory marked him out as a horse of considerable quality, but the months that followed have tested both his resilience and the patience of those around him.
Since that landmark success, Massive Sovereign has raced only six times and has not reached the first three. His stop-start period has included multiple surgeries, with screws inserted in both front fetlocks and his left hind fetlock. He has also had to overcome further physical issues, including a tendon problem in his right hind hock.
The Irish-bred gelding first won the Derby under the care of Dennis Yip before moving to David Eustace’s stable in December 2024. His time there brought frustration rather than reward, although he did produce a respectable fourth behind Sagacious Life in a Class 2 contest over 1600m last October before another setback interrupted his progress.
After 14 months with Eustace, Massive Sovereign was transferred to Lor, Hong Kong’s champion trainer in the 2021/22 season. Lor has taken a careful route with the gelding, allowing him more than five months of recuperation before bringing him back for Sunday’s Class 1 Hong Kong Racehorse Owners Association Trophy Handicap over 1600m.
“The horse has had a few injuries,” Lor said. “Three of his legs have screws, and then the right hind hock had a tendon problem. So when I got the horse to my stable, he was still a bit lame in the right hind. So I need to work really hard to make him race.”
That work has gradually brought the gelding back to the point where Lor feels he is ready to reappear. The trainer said two barrier trials helped shape his decision, with the second, at the end of June, offering more encouragement than the first.
“I trialled him twice,” Lor said. “The first was just so-so, but the second trial looked better.
“I asked the jockey a little bit to see if in the last 200 metres he can show anything, and he came back and said: ‘He looks OK. The last 200m, I asked him and he looks good.’”
Andrea Atzeni will ride Massive Sovereign for the first time in a race, with the gelding set to carry 127lb. The immediate aim is not complicated. Lor wants him to break cleanly, settle into his rhythm, and then show in the closing stages whether the old finishing power is still there.
“I think we’ll just jump and relax first, and then we’ll see in the last quarter if he can — like in the Hong Kong Derby — I think he will close well,” Lor added.
The race is more than a seasonal finale for the former Derby winner. It is the first serious measure of what remains possible after a long spell of rehabilitation. His past ability is not in doubt, but Sunday will show how much of it he can still produce under race conditions.
Elsewhere on the card, Eustace will look to finish his second Hong Kong season on a positive note with Vivacious Win, who contests the Class 4 Solar Hei Hei Handicap over 1600m. The four-year-old has built a solid record at Happy Valley, finishing in the top three five times from nine starts there, but now faces a fresh test around Sha Tin.
Eustace sits on 35 wins for the season, one short of the 36 he recorded in his first Hong Kong campaign. Vivacious Win, who carries 132lb and will be ridden by Ethan Brown, won impressively in May, but his trainer believes the gelding may now face a tougher task after a ratings rise.
“Honestly, I was worried when the handicapper did what he did,” Eustace said. “Everything went perfectly for him in his last win. He found a relatively poor race, they went a nice gallop that he had to aim at, and the winning margin probably flattered him a bit, honestly. So, I think he might find it a little bit tough, but we’ll see.”
Sunday’s 11-race programme begins at 4pm with the Class 5 Miraculous Handicap over 1800m. As the curtain comes down on Sha Tin’s 2025/26 season, much of the attention will fall on Massive Sovereign, a Derby winner trying to write the next chapter of a career that has already taken more turns than most.
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