There were no surprises when the nominees for the Champion Awards were announced on Wednesday, but perhaps the most intriguing gong to be decided is Champion Miler with three worthy winners vying for the honour.

Group One Champions Mile winner My Wish, Group One Hong Kong Mile victor Voyage Bubble and champion galloper Romantic Warrior look hard to split in what could prove a head-scratcher for the six-member judging panel.

My Wish won three eligible races under the award’s criteria – races over 1,400m to below 1,800m – with the Group Two Sha Tin Trophy (1,600m) and Group Three Celebration Cup (1,400m) his other victories.

Voyage Bubble, the reigning Champion Miler, defended his crown in December’s Hong Kong Mile with a tough performance from barrier 12.

While that was his only triumph of the term, Ricky Yiu Poon-fai’s stable star added a third placing behind Romantic Warrior in the city’s other Group One mile, the Stewards’ Cup in January.

Romantic Warrior could add a first Champion Miler crown to his haul of Champion Awards, but his success in the Stewards’ Cup – the start of his journey towards Triple Crown glory – was the only eligible race for the award that he contested this season.

My Wish could have his nose in front on the strength of his overall campaign, but it won’t be an easy call for the judging panel of Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, executive director of racing Andrew Harding and head of racing product Greg Carpenter and three members of the Association of Hong Kong Racing Journalists.

The highlight of the Champions Awards night on July 10 will be the Horse of the Year crown, with the winners of all categories except Champion Griffin to vie for the top honour.

Ka Ying Rising, the only nominee for Champion Sprinter, is likely to join some of Hong Kong’s greats – Golden Sixty, Beauty Generation, Ambitious Dragon and Fairy King Prawn – as a back-to-back Horse of the Year.

His biggest challenger for the title will no doubt be Romantic Warrior, who will be crowned Champion Middle Distance Horse for the fifth straight year and is also the only nominee for Champion Stayer.

Hong Kong Derby (2,000m) hero Invincible Ibis headlines the Champion Four-Year-Old nominees, which also include Classic Mile winner Little Paradise, Classic Cup victor Stormy Grove and Group Three winner Numbers.

Hot Delight looks the stand-out in the Champion Griffin after impressive wins in four of his five starts for Francis Lui Kin-wai. Salon S, who boasts the same record, Baby Sakura and Tycoon Resources are the other nominees.

Ka Ying to lose No 1 ranking?

He has been perched at the top of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings for the entire year, but Ka Ying Rising could be dethroned by Ombudsman when the latest rankings are released next month.

Ombudsman’s four-length romp in the Group One Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot last week earned him a rating of 132 from British Horseracing Authority handicappers.

That figure, which will be debated on when the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings committee next meets, puts Ombudsman 2lb above Ka Ying Rising’s international rating.

“I have given Ombudsman a mark of 132, and even that, mathematically, could be on the low side when you consider the horses he beat,” BHA’s head of handicapping Dominic Gardiner-Hill said.

“On the global scale, this is the highest mark I have for a horse in 2026. He would be a couple of pounds clear of Ka Ying Rising on my figures but I have just one of the 17 votes in the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings and others may have different opinions, so it remains to be seen where the two will sit on the July interim list.”

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