HONG KONG –Highland Reel arrived in Hong Kong during December 2016 draped in a cloak of travel clichés: “frequent-flyer miles,” “globetrotter,” “iron horse.” Highland Reel had started his season shipping from Ireland to Dubai, went on to Hong Kong for a race in April, returned home for a summer European campaign, won the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita, and then, after stopping off for a few weeks back home in Ireland, came back to Hong Kong – and finished second as the odds-on favorite in the Group 1 Hong Kong Vase. Aidan O’Brien trained Highland Reel, who managed to win the Vase in 2017 after making only two trips out of Ireland that season, to Dubai in March and to Del Mar for the BC Turf. Now O’Brien trains a 4-year-old filly named Magic Wand. She, too, has come to Hong Kong for one of the Hong Kong International Races, to be contested Sunday at Sha Tin Racecourse, and her start in the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup caps a campaign that makes Highland Reel’s 2016 season seem like a neighborhood pub crawl. :: Hong Kong: Free PPs, picks, and analysis Magic Wand began her year shipping from O’Brien’s yard in Ireland, Ballydoyle, to Gulfstream Park, where she finished a fine second to surefire 2019 champion turf horse Bricks and Mortar in the Pegasus World Cup Turf. Round-trip travel: 8,140 miles. Roughly two months later, she was off to Dubai. She didn’t run much there in the Sheema Classic, checking in fifth while logging roughly 9,682 miles. May 11 – there was Magic Wand, getting going too late in the Grade 1 Man o’ War Stakes at Belmont Park in New York, rushing up to finish a close third. Round-trip miles: 6,208. In June, a trip that must have felt like jumping a puddle to the filly, a 327-mile journey to Ascot Racecourse in England for a second-place finish in the listed Wolferton Stakes. Next up – a race at home in Ireland! Magic Wand finished second to subsequent Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Iridessa in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes at The Curragh. In July, another try at Ascot, though to be fair, Magic Wand for whatever reason never tried at all there in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, beaten 50 lengths by Enable. No worries. August brought another long journey, 7,226 miles round trip to Arlington, where Magic Wand once again was runner-up to Bricks and Mortar, this time in the Arlington Million. Five weeks later, Magic Wand returned to action in Ireland, coming a troubled second to her super stablemate Magical in the Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes. Then, Magic Wand really lit out for distant shores – 10,796 miles, not to put too fine a point on it, from Ballydoyle to Moonee Valley in Australia, where Magic Wand finished a solid fourth of 14 in the Group 1 Cox Plate. That was Oct. 26. On Nov. 5 at Flemington Racecourse, Magic Wand endured a tough trip from start to finish trying two miles for the first time in the Group 1 Melbourne Cup. Four days later (yes, four!), she finally got her first win of the year, as well as the first Group 1 of her career, beating 15 foes in the 2,000-meter McKinnon Stakes. To celebrate, Magic Wand got on a plane for the nearly 11,000-mile flight back home. This past weekend, a mere month later, she flew with two other O’Brien-trained horses, most prominently Vase starter and Epsom Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck, from Ireland to Hong Kong. That journey is 6,223 miles, bringing Magic Wand’s total for the year to about 60,000 miles – enough to send even Highland Reel reeling. “She comes out of her races like she hasn’t done anything,” said O’Brien, reached earlier this week in Ireland. “She was in Australia just a few weeks ago, but I think she’s actually happier now than she’s ever been.” Magic Wand, with three wins from 21 starts, is eligible for a third-level allowance race. She also has banked more than $3.3 million. By Galileo out of Prudenzia, by Dansili, Magic Wand is a sister to Chicquita, fourth for O’Brien and the Coolmore ownership group that campaigns Magic Wand in the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Turf. Magic Wand raced only once as a 2-year-old and won the Cheshire Oaks in her second start as a 3-year-old. Ryan Moore, O’Brien’s No. 1 jockey, rode Magic Wand for the first time in the following race, the Group 1 Oaks at Epsom. “I thought she might win the Oaks, but it rained,” said Moore, who got to Hong Kong early this week to participate in the international Jockeys’ Challenge on Wednesday night. Moore said Magic Wand runs hard every start and isn’t hapless over a course with cut in the ground – like the Pegasus last winter, and even the McKinnon last month – but she’s a filly with a decided preference for fast, firm going like she got in the Irish Champion and will find Sunday at Sha Tin. Moore also rode Highland Reel in both his Hong Kong starts. Magic Wand is just as tough, unflappable and professional as he was, and might even be a little larger and heavier. “You have to look at this mare up close,” Moore said. “There’s a lot to her.” It’s not like world travel was Magic Wand’s destiny from birth. “She’s really just evolved into it,” O’Brien said. “She’s very well bred, but it’s unbelievable, the reality of it. She’s gone from one big race to another, one big festival meet to the next. She does her routine work at home like them all. She’s really off-handed, loves being in a routine, and wants to get back into it straight away when she comes home. She’s the most amazing filly in that way that we’ve ever seen, I think.” The Cup has come up light this year, both in terms of star quality and sheer number of runners, merely eight. Magic Wand stands a good chance of being favored and of making that 6,223-mile trip home after winning the Hong Kong Cup. Do not expect her to stay put for long. “I think she races again next year,” O’Brien said. “Possibly, she could go to Florida again for the Pegasus.” Of course she could. Gulfstream Park, remember, is less than 4,100 miles away.