Hong Kong winds up on Sunday with Joao Moreira and John Size receiving the champion jockey and trainer titles and a function on Friday night to announce Werther as the Horse Of The Year.
And boom female apprentice Kei Chiong sealed the result on Wednesday night at Happy Valley as leading Chinese jockey, and winner of the new Tony Cruz Award, in her first season.
Moreira will fall short of 170 wins that seemed likely but has blitzed the record he set last year and, with the Jockey Club getting 5 more race meetings next season, he could be looking at as many as 200 wins.
For Size, it will be his eighth title in 15 seasons and he could go back to back with the three-year-old talent he has unearthed to add to his strong four-year-olds heading forward.
At the other end of the scale, Andreas Schutz, Sean Woods and Gary Ng will fail to meet the performance benchmarks for trainers, a third strike for Woods and Schutz who now face show cause hearings before the Licensing Committee.
Also from Licensing this week was that Sydney jockey Sam Clipperton got the call up to the Sha Tin jockeys’ room in September, with a 3-month licence he will be hoping to extend.
On Wednesday, Lucky Year – the horse sold from the Chris Waller yard under the name Li’l Caesar – stamped himself a future Group horse and has been targeted at the Chief Executive’s Cup on opening day in September, and the final features on Sunday often throw up pointers to the future.
John Moore dominates the Sha Tin Mile Trophy, where Moreira has had to make the difficult choice between Moore stablemates Helene Paragon and Joyful Trinity and gone with the former, but both are touted as big race contenders later.
On the turnover front, Jockey Club officials were estimating a drop of 5 per cent in betting mid-season but the second part of the season has been positive and the figure is now expected to be down by one per cent or less when the dust clears.
By Nathan Mody
