Rising 3-year-olds Thanks Forever and Big Party at the most interesting entrants in the featured Hong Kong Reunification Cup on a rare Monday card at Sha Tin.

Race 7 of 10, the Reunification Cup is a Class 2 handicap carded at 1,200 meters for horses rated 80-100, and it drew 14 entrants, Thanks Forever and Big Party the big movers in official ratings off their most recent starts. Thanks Forever, an Australian import trained by John Moore – himself an Australian import – had his rating elevated 14 points to 92. Big Party, another Australian-bred, this one trained by Frankie Lor, came up 13 points to hit a mark of 87.

Thanks Forever has the flashier record of the pair and has scored a pair, with three easy wins in his three Hong Kong starts, one last racing season and two this year at the Class 3 level. But leading jockey Zac Purton, who rode both horses in recent wins, winds up on Big Party on Monday. Big Party had a setback earlier this season that kept him out of action a couple months, and he was a somewhat disappointing fifth in his return to racing in April. Big Party, though, was back to his previously impressive self on May 18, roaring to a three-length win with Purton in the irons for the first time.

Karis Teetan takes the mount now on Thanks Forever, who is stretched out Monday from two straight-course 1,000-meter races to this one-turn 1,200-meter dash.

Raging Storm, rated 93, is a 4-year-old far more exposed than Thanks Forever and Big Party but probably can improve on two seventh-place finishes that followed two wins, all four starts at this Class 2 level. The loss two back came with a cutback to a straight 1,000 meters, though Raging Storm had no obvious excuse for another seventh last out at a 1,200-meter trip he appears to prefer.