INSIDE TRACK: From Dennis Yip’s fairytale to Hong Kong racing’s new reality

Anybody lucky enough to experience the electric atmosphere of the 2012/13 season finale at Happy Valley was left in no doubt about the passion of Hong Kong racing fans – particularly for their “homegrown” heroes.

When Ben So Tik-hung showed nerves of steel to ride Flying Elite to an all-or-nothing victory in the final race of the season, it clinched a dramatic championship for popular trainer Dennis Yip Chor-hong and sent the capacity crowd into raptures. It had been 12 years since a Chinese trainer had won the title. Enormous flags were unfurled in Yip’s honor and when the last local to take the championship – Yip’s former mentor, the Godfather-like Brian Kan Ping-chee – appeared, the crowd let out another almighty roar.

At the time, Yip’s win was considered an anomaly – something like Leicester City’s 5,000-to-1 Premier League triumph that broke the megaclubs’ stranglehold on English football. In hindsight, Yip’s win was more breakthrough than blip. The shift wasn’t immediately obvious, but this decade has seen a dramatic change – three of the last six championships have been won by Chinese trainers. Ricky Yiu Poon-fai (2019/20), Frankie Lor Fuchuen (2021/22) and Francis Lui Kin-wai (2023/24) all won maiden titles and, unlike Yip, have stayed among the top contenders.

Lui’s success with the all-time great Golden Sixty – and the fact that local jockey Vincent Ho Chak-yiu rode him throughout his stellar career – was another step forward. Before Ho’s rise, the most familiar local storyline was a Hong Kong jockey doing the hard work only to be replaced on the big day by an overseas rider flown in at the owners’ expense. Ho proved Hong Kong riders had the appetite and temperament for the sport’s biggest moments.

Last Sunday’s success in Seoul by Self Improvement in the Korea Sprint – trainer Manfred Man Ka-leung combining with Jerry Chau Chun-lok – was a spectacular side note to the Ka Ying Rising show at Sha Tin, but the significance of the achievement shouldn’t be ignored.

For Chau, the confidence gained could be career-changing – next time a trainer, foreign or local, is looking for a trusted set of hands for an overseas mission, the 25-year-old could be the first choice.

Chau’s success was also a boost for the Club’s Apprentice Jockeys School. Ho and So, along with Matthew Chadwick, Derek Leung Ka-chun and Keith Yeung Ming-lun, graduated within a two-year period that became a golden era for homegrown riders.

The five jockeys have a combined 2,251 career wins and counting. It could be argued that the four still riding (So has retired) are just entering their primes. Since then, the next wave of apprentices had struggled to match those heights – until Chau, Ellis Wong Chi-wang and Matthew Poon Ming-fai emerged to right the ship and restore confidence in the program.

Later this month, Man will again send a local abroad – Leung will ride Lucky Sweynesse in the Sprinters’ Stakes on September 28 at Nakayama. When Alex Lai Hoi-wing rode Ultra Fantasy to a 31-to-1 upset for Yiu in the 2010 Sprinters’ Stakes, it was seen as a feel-good fluke.

But just like the shift in the training ranks, if Leung and Man can win at Nakayama, all-homegrown overseas triumphs could soon be the new normal.