Hong Kong gallops on, through sickness and strife

The Hong Kong Jockey Club is a formidable institution. It has shelled out HK$4 million (about R8 million) for charter flights to bring in foreign jockeys, trainers and stable staff for the iconic two-meeting international racing festival.

More money is being spent on healthcare professionals to conduct coronavirus tests on every pilot, bus driver, attendant and dogsbody to ensure the racing folk don’t catch the dreaded bug and remain sealed off in a pristine bubble during their sojourn.

There won’t be visitors from Australia, the US or South Africa, but horses and riders have jetted in from Ireland, the UK, France, Singapore and Japan.

The overseas raiders will be greeted by the vast empty grandstands of Happy Valley and Sha Tin racecourses, with only horses’ immediate connections permitted under the latest lockdown regulations. It is testament to the popularity of racing – and the mammoth punting pools – in the Chinese enclave that everyone reckons it worthwhile to press on with the show.

It kicks off with Wednesday evening’s Longines International Jockeys Challenge at Happy Valley (2.30pm SA time).

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A coup for the Jockey Club was signing up Hollie Doyle and Tom Marquand, the young riding couple making headlines in the UK at the moment. The former has been named The Sunday Times’s Sportsperson of the Year and is shortlisted for the BBC Sports Personality award, while her boyfriend is just as much a rising star of the saddle.

They are joined by fellow Brits, Ryan Moore and William Buick, while Pierre-Charles Boudot and Mickael Barzalona travel from France. Former Challenge champion Kerrin McEvoy had to pull out as Australian lockdown rules provided no clarity about how or when he could return home.

Belgian superstar Christophe Soumillon has also been ruled out of the Jockeys Challenge as he is still in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 at the Breeders’ Cup race meeting in the US last month. Soumillon will, however, be in the clear to ride at Sunday’s International Races, when the visiting horses step out in four Grade 1 contests.

Six of the jockeys in Wednesday’s four-race Challenge are based in Hong Kong, though only Vincent Ho is a local. The others are: Brazilian Joao Moreira, who is currently riding them to sleep in the city; multiple Hong Kong champion Zac Purton from Australia; Frenchman Alexis Badel, Irishman Neil Callan, and Karis Teetan from Mauritius.

Teetan, who learned his craft in South Africa, is the defending Challenge champion, having triumphed in 2019 when the competition was a little more diverse.

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Douglas Whyte, the “Durban Demon” who won the Challenge a few times back when he dominated Hong Kong racing, will be in attendance, saddling runners in his new career as a trainer.

A new system for allocating rides for the four legs of the Challenge has been implemented, with horse seedings aimed at giving each jockey an even chance of collecting points. This followed complaints that jockeys were being asked to travel halfway around the world to find that they were assigned to four no-hopers in the “lucky” draw.

It all points to plenty of exciting racing – available to local fans on Tellytrack (DStv channel 249) and TAB’s various betting platforms.

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