Those of you who attended our meeting at Sha Tin last Sunday were able to witness a very special moment in Hong Kong racing, as Multiglory's victory in the second race made Matthew Chadwick our fastest-ever apprentice jockey to attain the 70-win mark in Hong Kong - in just 387 days. In doing so, he also graduated from the apprentice ranks.
I'd say this is definitely not an easy task for a young rider to achieve, as the racing environment in Hong Kong is quite different from those of other racing jurisdictions. While in some countries they have race meetings every day, here we just have two meetings a week and about 700 races a season, meaning there are a lot fewer riding opportunities available for our young lads. In addition, they have to face regular competition here from some of the world's top jockeys, even though they receive weight allowances in most local races. So winning 70 races in less than 13 months on home turf is truly an outstanding achievement for any apprentice jockey - and remember that Matthew is still only 19!
Matthew will become a freelance jockey starting from tonight's meeting and I hope he can continue to improve himself and flourish in his future career. I'm sure our local racing fans will continue to give him their strong support.
There's also been some great news this week about our top racehorses, as the 2009 World Thoroughbred Rankings announced last night by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities confirm that our champion sprinter Sacred Kingdom is the world's top-rated turf sprinter for the third consecutive year. He was rated 122 for his victory in the KrisFlyer International Sprint last May and shares the honour with King's Stand Stakes champion Scenic Blast.
I think this is a great compliment to Sacred Kingdom's trainer Ricky Yiu and owner Sin Kang-yuk, as after the horse suffered a health setback in late 2008, they adopted a very careful and patient attitude to ensuring his full recovery, and were duly rewarded with some tremendous performances in Hong Kong and Singapore, which brought the runner back to international prominence.
I am also pleased to learn that we have a record tally of 15 Hong Kong-based racehorses who hold international ratings of 115 or above in the year-end ranking list. When you consider that it was only in 1998 that Johan Cryuff became the first-ever Hong Kong horse to achieve a world ranking, it is clear how much the standard of our races and quality of our racehorses has kept increasing over the past decade. I hope even more Hong Kong runners will be included in the international rankings at the end of this year.
Apart from these top racehorses, we also have a few up-and-coming runners who entered for the Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Derby in March, delivered promising runs at Sha Tin last weekend.
Three four-year-old horses, namely Brave Kid, Mr Celebrity and Jun Dao, completed a top-three finish in Sunday's last race. I was particularly impressed by Brave Kid as he burst clear from the rest of the field to win this 1400m race by almost four lengths, which shows his ability and credentials.
In addition, I've recently talked with trainer John Moore about Irian, a Derby prospect and one of the most expensive imported horses this season. This four-year-old colt, which is formerly owned by my good friend Baron von Ullmann in Germany, won the Group 2 German 2000 Guineas at Cologne in May last year. He's a very good looking horse and John seems to be very pleased with his progress, and he has arranged the horse to make his Hong Kong debut on 24 January over 1400m. So I shall look forward to seeing how this German import and other Derby-bound contenders perform in the coming weeks.
There are three more race meetings to go before the Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Classic Mile on 24 January, including tonight's meeting at Happy Valley. Among the eight races on the card, I'll be watching the performance of Excellent Boy in the January Cup. After his disappointing campaign last term, this eight-year-old showed signs of revival by getting a 3rd place finish in his penultimate start at Happy Valley, and ran close in his previous run on the all weather track. He will be partnered by Douglas Whyte and feature at the distance of 1800m, which he won two times in his career. I think he will have nice chance to get some results tonight. Best Friend and two tremendous Hong Kong International Sale graduates - Nobel Conqueror and Great Achievement - have all had nice performances at this city track before, they should be the other horses in the frame in this event.
For the Cannon Handicap, I think it's a very open race but I like Easy as he performed very consistently in his recent starts. I hope he can be benefitted from the good draw of Gate 2 tonight. Among other runners, both Golden Bauhinia and Cheerful City won in the same course and distance earlier this season and I think they will be Easy's main rivals in this event. And of course, I'd love to see Young Label giving our Racing Club members a cheer and good time. I think he will run close and I'll see if Aaron Gryder can spring a surprise for us tonight.
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