Lucky Sweynesse is undefeated over the distance and Wellington is the defending Group One Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup champion, but Hong Kong’s star sprinters are set to experience a faster tempo on Sunday than they have encountered in any of their previous 1,400m races.

California Spangle poses a massive threat to not only Lucky Sweynesse becoming the first galloper to complete the Centenary Sprint Cup-Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup double since the Jockey Club moved the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup to before the Chairman’s Sprint Prize in 2016, but also Wellington joining Man Of Honour, Joyful Winner and Beauty Generation as a back-to-back winner of the seven-furlong feature.

Six months ago, California Spangle made his first and currently only start over 1,400m, and the subsequent Hong Kong Mile hero was highly impressive in winning what his trainer, Tony Cruz, described as “the easiest race he’s ever had” by two lengths in a time 0.54 seconds quicker than this season’s next best seven-furlong time.

First up 154 days on from his Champions Mile second to Golden Sixty and lumped with 127 pounds under handicap conditions, California Spangle smashed the clock despite his jockey, Zac Purton, not once using his stick to ask his mount for his maximum effort in the Group Three Celebration Cup on September 25.

California Spangle’s first three sectional times in the Celebration Cup were 13.38, 21.72 and 22.61, so he covered the opening 1,000m 0.74 seconds faster than the Group standard and pretty much matched the typical final sectional under Purton’s hands and heels.

Both Lucky Sweynesse and Wellington have raced twice over 1,400m, with the former carrying 116- and 135-pound imposts to his two victories and the latter losing his unbeaten record on his first appearance over the trip before proving it was not beyond him when winning last term’s Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup, which took place on uncommon rain-affected ground.

While Lucky Sweynesse has registered closing sectional times quicker than the Group standard in both of his 1,400m races, he has not reached the 1,200m, 800m or 400m poles inside their respective benchmarks.

For example, the leaders in both of Lucky Sweynesse’s 1,400m contests covered the first 1,000m in times more than 0.8 of a second slower than the Group standard, with Manfred Man Ka-leung’s superstar one length behind Healthy Happy and two lengths adrift of The Runner.

Assessing Wellington’s 1,400m performances is harder than running the rule over those of Lucky Sweynesse because they occurred further in the past and the pick of them, his 2022 Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup success, coincided with an abnormal rain event.

Wellington clocked 1:23.53 in winning last term’s Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup, a time 2.33 seconds slower than the Group standard because of the good-to-yielding surface on which the Group One clash took place.

A fairer appraisal of Wellington’s run comes courtesy of ratings agency Punting Form, but even its numbers, which endeavour to account for ground, wind and so on, rank it as the least impressive of the Richard Gibson-trained speedster’s past eight victories, with the early pace rated as very slow for the class.

Six gallopers are expected to contest the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup at Sha Tin on Sunday, with Beauty Joy, Courier Wonder and Waikuku primed to take on California Spangle, Lucky Sweynesse and Wellington.

Kiwi jockey James McDonald is free to partner not only Lucky Sweynesse but also BMW Hong Kong Derby outsider Beautyverse after Racing New South Wales reduced the duration of his recently issued careless riding suspension from six meetings to four meetings on appeal, with his revised ban expiring on Thursday. In other Derby news, Damian Lane replaces injured Jamie Kah aboard Galaxy Witness.