While it’s looking very much like Hong Kong’s best gallopers will have Champions Day all to themselves come April, there will be no shortage of intrigue whether the overseas raiders make it or not.

Golden Sixty’s loss in the Group One Citi Hong Kong Gold Cup (2,000m) at Sha Tin on Sunday will ensure a long two months of uncertainty for trainer Francis Lui Kin-wai and jockey Vincent Ho Chak-yiu.

Will one of the best gallopers this city has ever seen be a fading champion by season’s end, or can he prolong his superstar status with a second consecutive victory in the Champions Mile?

After reeling off 16 blistering wins on the trot, he’s certainly had excuses in his past two defeats and Ho was quick to point to a rare yielding track – by far the wettest anything Golden Sixty has raced on – as being the six-year-old’s downfall on the weekend.

It obviously didn’t help but he was outclassed all the same, beaten a widening five and a half lengths by Russian Emperor and also beaten home by $57 chance Savvy Nine.

Ho was among those surprised by Lui’s decision to tackle the 2,000m over the 1,400m of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup and it would be no shock if we’ve seen the five-time Group One winner race at 10 furlongs for the last time.

As for Russian Emperor, he showed his eye-catching third behind Japanese superstar Loves Only You in December’s Hong Kong Cup was no fluke with a performance that suggests he could be the first local galloper since Exultant to ring up multiple Group One wins in races 2,000m and above.

He will have claims to the Group One QE II Cup (2,000m) regardless of who comes and could well be the next top-liner Hong Kong has been crying out for.

Then there’s the Chairman’s Sprint Prize to look forward to, a race that could have as many local gallopers bringing proven Group One credentials as any 1,200m contest in Hong Kong in recent years.

Wellington is compiling quite the record, with his victory in Sunday’s Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup his second Group One win from his past five starts, and after luckless runs in his two outings before that, it’s hard to argue he couldn’t have more top-line success to his name.

Sky Field will arrive in April with a point to prove. After winning an incident-marred Hong Kong Sprint in December, he couldn’t go past Stronger when second in the Centenary Sprint Cup last month and wasn’t given the best chance of performing at his peak on Sunday.

Positioned in the one-one by Blake Shinn, Sky Field was unable to unleash his brilliant late turn of foot in an effort trainer Caspar Fownes labelled an “absolute forget run, that’s not the way to ride him”.

Ideally we will get to see Hong Kong’s best locking horns with big guns from aboard come the three Group Ones on Champions Day but a lot will have to go right in the coming weeks for the Hong Kong government to grant the Jockey Club the quarantine bubble it needs to bring in overseas competitors.

Jockey Club executive Bill Nader admitted the next couple of weeks are crucial as the government continues to pursue its “zero-Covid” policy despite cases sailing past 6,000 a day.

“The entries close on March 14 and I think probably before the entries close we’re going to have to let everyone know what the score is,” he said.

“Probably around the first week of March we’ll try to know everything about how it’s going to play out and by doing that we buy a couple more weeks to see what goes on.

Russian Emperor reigns supreme in Hong Kong Gold Cup as Golden Sixty again disappoints

“It’s hard to really have that crystal ball as to what it looks like on April 24. If people need to fly in by mid-April at the latest we have to let them know.

“People also need some foresight before the Dubai World Cup meeting [on March 26], if you’re trying to decide between Dubai and Hong Kong or if you’re trying to do both, at least you know what you need to do.”

Nader confirmed the Jockey Club still expects there to be significant international interest despite the circumstances in Hong Kong but whether the raiders can converge on Sha Tin or not remains to be seen.

In the event that they can’t, Champions Day will have a bruised Golden Sixty, a blossoming Russian Emperor and a competitive sprint division to fall back on.