Homegrown riders hold four of the top six places in the jockeys’ championship, and Shane Dye believes one of them can become the first local champion since Tony Cruz.
It has been more than 30 years since a homegrown jockey won the Hong Kong Jockeys’ Championship. I don’t think it will be that long before it happens again, and if I had to pick who it would be, I’d say Jerry Chau.
Tony Cruz was the last local to do it, back in 1994-95. Only five jockeys have won the title since: Basil Marcus, Robbie Fradd, Douglas Whyte, Joao Moreira and Zac Purton, and every one of them came from overseas. Hong Kong usually has one rider who dominates for a long time. Douglas won 13 in a row and Zac has won nine in the 13 seasons since.
Things are changing, though, and homegrown riders hold four of the top six places in the championship this season: Nichola Yuen, Jerry, Vincent Ho and Derek Leung. Hugh Bowman, runner-up in each of the past two seasons, had hip surgery and will be out for another six months, and the locals have moved straight into that space.
Zac is still the man to beat at 43, riding as well as ever, and he can keep going for a while yet. But nobody rides forever, and his career is closer to the end than the start.
Why are the local riders doing so well? A big part of it is the system. Hong Kong is high-pressure racing compared to where an apprentice would normally start, so the Jockey Club sends its young riders to Australia, New Zealand or South Africa first to learn their craft in an easier environment. Felix Coetzee has been a big help to the younger ones. When they come home, often at a more mature age, they get a 10-pound allowance until their 20th Hong Kong winner and seven pounds until their 45th, which is huge.
The rating system makes races so even that, in handicaps with a 20-pound weight spread, an on-pace horse carrying seven or 10 pounds less has a massive advantage. Nichola is a good example. Horses run for her, and her strike rate of nearly 17 percent is second only to Zac’s.
Jerry’s claim has been reduced to just two pounds now, which is why his season stands out. He has kept improving over the last 18 months and he understands how to ride here. He must have been listening to my analysis, because he rides exactly the way I’d want a Hong Kong jockey to ride: patient, saving ground and saving energy. His win on Speed Dragon in the Sa Sa Ladies’ Purse was a good example. He settled near the back, waited and let the horse carry him into the race. You can’t ride every horse like that, but his horses are often finishing the last 100 meters better than anything else in the race.
What has changed is his mental approach. You have to be able to say, “I don’t care,” and by that, I mean you can’t be afraid to be unlucky. Around the 400 meters, most jockeys are trying to get out into clear running, so they don’t look unlucky. Jerry holds his horse up and waits for the run. Sometimes he’ll get stuck behind horses, look bad, lose a winner and be criticized for it. You have to accept that.
Zac Lloyd is a classic example in Australia. Lloyd used to make a lot of mistakes because he wasn’t patient. He wanted to be in the clear at the top of the straight, and he would get his horses off balance and find trouble. Then it clicked. He learned to wait the extra 200 meters for the run to come, and he went from a very good jockey to a superstar.
For Jerry, it comes down to two things. He is a little heavier than some of the locals and doesn’t ride under 121 pounds, so he has to keep his weight in check. If he does that and keeps improving, I think he can take the title once Zac Purton goes, though I don’t see that happening next season.
We have to be honest about the competition, too. It isn’t as strong as it was in the 1990s or early 2000s. Australia and New Zealand aren’t producing superstar jockeys the way they did 30 or 40 years ago. Europe has plenty of good young riders, but most are tied to contracts and come for stints, the way Dylan Browne McMonagle did last season and will again this term. Zac Purton’s dominance scares a few away as well.
The best Australians won’t be coming soon either. Sydney champion James McDonald had a golden opportunity to set himself up for life here two or three years ago, when Romantic Warrior was at his peak, but he chose the glory of Group 1 winners in Australia over the money in Hong Kong. Now, he has too many good horses there to leave now. I wouldn’t advise Zac Lloyd to come yet, either. He’s young, he’s getting better all the time and he’s better off where he is.
So when Zac Purton does retire, it’s going to be very interesting to see who takes over. The next champion might already be riding at Sha Tin and Happy Valley every week, and his name is Jerry Chau.
This article first appeared in Idol Horse as "Shane Dye: Jerry Chau can be Hong Kong’s champion jockey after Zac Purton".
