By MIKE DILLON
The McKees are racing's coolest dudes.
In their worst racing moment 12 months ago they said nothing.
They knew Sunline's chances of winning the Hong Kong Cup had been blown when the champion mare took charge of rider Greg Childs in her final work.
It took the stuffing out of Sunline, but when raceday turned to disaster the McKees said nothing.
The Mafia may have made popular the term revenge is best delivered cold, but the McKees lived it out last night watching Sunline deal a body blow to Hong Kong's Horse Of The Year, Fairy King Prawn, in the $3.65 million Hong Kong Mile.
It matters not at all that Sunline copped a soft lead - she got away with a luxury first 400m in 25 seconds - Sha Tin is no day at the beach for leaders and Sunline had to take the tempo and hold them out.
Fairy King Prawn is one of the world's great metric milers, having won Japan's premier group one 1600m race earlier this year, but he could not pull Sunline back.
He tried hard, giving Sunline eight lengths start from the home bend, but he was a stride too late.
The $US6 million Dubai World Cup raceday beckons.
Trevor McKee says Sunline has achieved all he could ever have asked for and what follows now is only a bonus.
But to see the mare win against the best horses in the world on the world's richest raceday must be a dream for a former moderately successful jumps jockey.
"Yes, we are all go for Dubai now," said Trevor McKee last night.
"She had to win to prove she was good enough.
"We have always known she was good enough, but she had to prove it to everyone else in a race like this."
Beyond Dubai, McKee and his two owners have said they may take on an American campaign to wind up the mare's career, but a third successive Cox Plate victory in October is another tempting attraction.
"We have only ever taken one step at a time and that's what we will be doing here."
Reading Trevor McKee is never easy before a race, but he admitted racing at this level worked on his nerves.
"Everything went so perfectly going into the race, but so much can go wrong during the race you can never relax."
Fairy King Prawn, the highest-rated horse ever in Kong Kong, might be the public pinup, but the country's biggest punters made a fortune on Sunline.
So vast was the avalanche of money for the Kiwi mare, her opening price matched even the New Zealand quote at $1.80.
She eased to start at $2.20, but was clearly the favourite, remarkable in a racing arena in which they revere their champions to exclusion of all else.
Sunline will be flown to Melbourne for quarantine later this week and will return to New Zealand early in January.
Australasia produced a breeding coup in the Mile.
Fairy King Prawn is Australian-bred and third place went to Queensland-trained Adam.
Earlier, champion Queensland sprinter Falvelon scored a grinding win in the Hong Kong Sprint.
Damien Oliver had Falvelon close to the speed and he stuck it out to score narrowly. Falvelon won by a head from the American galloper Morluc with former Australian King Of Danes third.
Racing: McKees play it cool as champ runs hot
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