SHA TIN, Hong Kong – Beat the Clock was up just in time to win his first Hong Kong Sprint after finishing third in the race last year.

Trainer John Size, a sprint master, went tick-tock in the Group 1, $2.55 million Sprint, with Hot King Prawn battling bravely to finish second. Jockey Joao Moreira? He rang the big chime, capturing his second Group 1 on the card, following Glory Vase’s Hong Kong Vase triumph, and winning four of the first five races Sunday at Sha Tin.

Hot favorite Aethero couldn’t find high gear in the final furlong, and though he ran well enough finishing a close third, he couldn’t live up to the hype after dashing out to a clear early lead. Mr. Stunning, the two-time HK Sprint winner, pushed Aethero through a whistling 21.86 four-hundred meters around the turn, and in the words of a disappointed jockey Zac Purton, who had lost the previous race on heavily favored Exultant, “he got tired.”

Moreira, a longtime partner of Beat the Clock, seemed to have grown tired of hearing how Aethero was Hong Kong’s star sprinter.

“Some people were kind of doubting [Beat the Clock], maybe thinking there was one other horse who was better,” Moreira said. “He proved he’s the best sprinter in Hong Kong.”

A 3-year-old never had won the Sprint – and still hasn’t – and Aethero couldn’t quite get back to his course-record-setting performance three weeks ago in the Jockey Club Sprint despite getting nine pounds from the two in front of him Sunday.

Beat the Clock never has finished worse than third in his 14 Hong Kong starts and knocked out his third Group 1 in the jurisdiction. Moreira said the plan was the get into a spot just behind Aethero, who easily crossed over to lead from an outside draw, but Beat the Clock wasn’t quite quick enough and had to race from sixth while saving ground around the turn. Moreira steered two paths off the rail cornering for home, then brought Beat the Clock outside Hot King Prawn and Mr. Stunning to make his run at Aethero. Moreira said he thought he’d win with a furlong still left to run but he didn’t best Aetheor until there were four strides to the finish. Hot King Prawn, making only his second start in a year and second since he had colic surgery last winter, was all heart to gain the place, with Mr. Stunning, another horse physically compromised last season, a very respectable fourth.

Beat the Clock, a 6-year-old Australian-bred gelding by Hitchinbrook out of Flion Fenena, by Lion Hunter, was timed in 1:08.12 for 1200 meters on firm, fast turf and paid $13 to win in the U.S.

It was the second HK Sprint for Size, an Australian expat who won the 2017 renewal with Mr. Stunning. Size said he was “humbled” with the effort Beat the Clock put forth Sunday as well as his general disposition.

“His character, his will to win, his fighting spirit – all those things that good horses have, he has all those attributes,” Size said. “He’ll sleep for a week now. He used every ounce of energy in his body today.”