Voyage Bubble showed the heart of a champion to defend his Group One Longines Hong Kong Mile crown in another ding-dong scrap with Japan’s Soul Rush at Sha Tin on Sunday.

The Ricky Yiu Poon-fai-trained Triple Crown hero won the race 12 months ago when defeating Soul Rush by a length and a quarter and there was a sense of deja vu with a mirror result – though it did not always look likely.

Sent off the $3.6 second favourite behind My Wish, Voyage Bubble gradually made ground down the back straight and slotted in behind leader Pray For Mir, before peeling out into the straight and surging to the lead soon after.

The race looked to be over when Soul Rush loomed up and snatched the lead 200m, but Voyage Bubble was in no mood to let his crown slip and was galvanised by Purton to wrestle back the lead 50m out in a titanic tussle.

“When Soul Rush couldn’t put me away, I could feel my horse start to gain a little bit more confidence and with 75m to go, I started to think, ‘hang on, we’re back in this’,” said Purton.

“I think when we reflect back upon all the great horses that have been in Hong Kong, he’s certainly going to be remembered in the way that he should. His CV is outstanding – winning the Triple Crown hadn’t been done for like 30-odd years or something.

“To come out and go back-to-back in the Hong Kong Mile is not an easy thing to do and he’s done it showing the heart that he’s got and the courage as well.

“Ricky’s handled the horse extremely well all the way through. I rode him in his first win over 1,200m and I haven’t really had much of a chance on him since. I said to Ricky that it’s great to finally get a Group One on his back as well.”

Yiu handed praise straight back in Purton’s direction, with his early move from barrier 12 putting him in the perfect position to pounce.

Whether Voyage Bubble now goes back down the Triple Crown route or stays at the mile remains to be seen, but Yiu is adamant his superstar is not showing any signs of slowing down.

“The horse has a great heart. A lot of credit to the jockey Zac Purton, right from the start he did it so well and before the bend, he gradually crept up,” said Yiu.

“It seems that he has ridden the horse a lot of times. Obviously he knows the horse well. Although he’s seven, I don’t really feel the age of him – he’s still full of beans.”

There was a disappointing undertone in the race, with up-and-comer and $3.5 favourite My Wish finishing sixth after a no-excuse trip in midfield.

“It just goes to show when you meet these older horses at level weights, they’re very hard to beat,” said trainer Mark Newnham.

“His wins earlier in the season were very good, but we had an advantage at the weights and we don’t have that any more.

“When he won second up, he carried 115lb and Voyage Bubble carried 135lb. Voyage Bubble has never won first up and we’re now meeting him at his best on level weights.

“At this stage of their careers, he’s just a bigger, stronger and more experienced horse. The way the track has played today, the races have been messy, including this race.

“Copartner Prance didn’t go ahead and lead as we expected and our plan was to stick to his outside so we weren’t pushed to the fence. He was out in time at the top of the straight but didn’t quite get there.

“He was probably entitled to run on and finish third. He didn’t run badly – just not as well as we hoped.”