The Velvet King Winning Saturday 29 May 2021 at Belmont Park Racecource
The Velvet King went into the Group 3 Hyperion Stakes as the $2.30 favourite following his dominant victory in the Group 3 Belmont Sprint, but his race was over only seconds after the gates opened when he refused to leave with the rest of the field.
With his slow start, he was ridden colder but still worked to the line strongly to only lose by 2.1 lengths and still be the horse you wanted to follow moving forward.
The concern for punters, trainer Darren McAuliffe and jockey Mitch Pateman is that this is not the first time this has happened, and he now must jump from barrier one.
From the inside draw, if he is only even slightly slow away, he may find himself trapped on the rail with nowhere to go for a major part of the race.
Staying optimistic, if he jumps with the field then he certainly has the speed to lead this race with Dance Music.
Having finish third in last year's edition, which is the only other time he has raced over 2000m, all eyes will be on the king at the start of the race and hopefully the end of the race for the Impressive Racing team and his owners.