HKIJC review: Top jockeys shining under a full moon and floodlights at Hong Kong’s Happy Valley

The focus will be on the equine performers for the Hong Kong International Races over at Sha Tin on Sunday, but for this appetiser for the main event, it’s the jockeys who are the centre of attention, the organisers taking advantage of the fact that some big names from overseas are already in town ahead of the weekend. At least the lucky ones who haven’t fallen foul of a positive Covid result.

Literally from the moment you step off the plane and are ushered into a queue to undergo a PCR test, it’s very evident that the pandemic, or at least measures to contain it, continues to dictate life to a large extent in this part of the world.

Daily tests are something all visitors have to undergo, jockeys and members of the press alike. The final line-up for the IJC is therefore a very different one from the original list of participants, with Australian Jye McNeil, Japan’s Yuga Kawada and Mickael Barzalona all unable to take part, the Frenchman testing positive on the very morning of the IJC, ruling him out of Sunday’s big meeting as well.

The four races that make up the IJC are the jam in the sandwich in the middle of what is otherwise a standard nine-race evening card at Happy Valley which caters for the more ordinary members of Hong Kong’s horse population most Wednesday nights during the season.

The IJC races may be a mix of ordinary handicaps but there’s still an enviable (from British eyes at least) amount of prize money up for grabs – the two Class 4 contests in the competition are worth the equivalent of around £70,000 to the winner and the more valuable of the Class 3 contests over £123,000.

Although there are no equine stars out tonight, don’t imagine that the racing is dull. On the contrary, all four IJC races are closely contested affairs, two won by short heads and the other two by less than a length, but it’s the venue itself which makes racing at Happy Valley a memorable experience, especially once darkness has fallen.

The first of the IJC contests is race number four on the card, preceded by fireworks, a multicoloured light show with beams pulsing around the track and across the grandstand, and a ceremony introducing each of the dozen participating jockeys to the crowd.

Some need little introduction to the locals, however, and the loudest cheer is reserved for Australian Zac Purton, Hong Kong’s reigning champ and already well on his way to a sixth jockeys’ title after recently clocking up 50 winners for the season (which began in September) in record time – and that’s despite having to sit out a couple of meetings, he too due to covid. Purton moved to Hong Kong at the start of the 2007/8 season and, uniquely, has now won every one of Hong Kong’s Group 1 contests at least once, while tonight he’s bidding for his fourth IJC title and his third in a row.

Happy Valley doesn’t need pyrotechnics to make a visual impression on someone visiting for the first time, though.

For a start, the track itself is a tight right-handed oval, perhaps best described as Chester in reverse, though it does have straights, with a small rise being a feature of the back stretch. The home turn is particularly sharp and spits the runners into a final dash for home that’s little more than 300m in length, making for a frenetic last furlong and a half ripe to produce more than a few hard-luck stories.

Then there’s the setting which, under the cover of darkness and with a random pattern of lights on in the hundreds of apartments that must have some sort of a view of the track, transforms Hong Kong’s ubiquitous high-rises into a surprisingly attractive backdrop like a scene out of Blade Runner.

In fact, it turns out Ridley Scott based the film’s cityscape on ‘Hong Kong on a very bad day’, so maybe he’s paid a visit to Happy Valley himself. Tonight there’s also the added attraction of a big full moon rising behind the skyscrapers.

With some smoke from the fireworks still in the floodlights in front of the stands, it’s time for the first of the IJC races, though a couple of the visiting jockeys have already warmed up with winners earlier on the card. One of those is Ryan Moore who picked up a spare ride that had been Barzalona’s – Moore is a regular IJC participant and a two-time winner. Also successful already – on her birthday - is Australia’s top female rider Jamie Kah, having her first experience of Happy Valley.

But first blood in the competition and the 12 points for the winning ride on Handsome Rebel goes to Vincent Ho, also the partner of Hong Kong’s reigning Horse of the Year Golden Sixty who will be bidding to win a third Hong Kong Mile on Sunday. With no breeding industry of its own, Hong Kong is reliant entirely on foreign imports for its horse population – like many of those competing, particularly in the sprints, Handsome Rebel, for example, is an Australian-bred – and, incidentally, a son of Denman but no, not that one!

While Hong Kong’s resident jockey population is a very cosmopolitan one too, it does also have home-grown talent and Handsome Rebel’s rider is a notable example, Ho being a graduate of the local Apprentice Jockeys’ School and a former champion apprentice. He has also had spells in Britain during the Hong Kong off-season and rode a winner at Ascot when helping the Rest of The World team to victory at the 2019 Shergar Cup.

The foreign challenge is kept at bay in the next race too, that too won by another graduate from Hong Kong’s own apprentice ranks, Derek Leung, aboard Win Win Fighter, another mount that should have been Barzalona’s whose last-minute absence from the competition was filled by Leung.

But in the third leg, it’s Tom Marquand who’s successful on Winning Dragon, he and Doyle taking a brief break from their successful joint-stint in Japan to take part here. There’s more than just bragging rights in the Marquand/Doyle at stake household, by the way, with the IJC winner bidding for a first prize of HK$700,000 or more than £70,000.

It's still far from clear who will be taking that home because, with only the final leg to be run, nine different jockeys have finished in the nine available scoring positions so far. The result of the deciding leg hardly makes things any clearer in the immediate aftermath of the race, with victory going to Silvestre de Sousa on favourite Adios. De Sousa won the IJC in 2018, the same year he was champion for the final time in Britain, though these days he’s based in Hong Kong where he’s currently third in the jockeys’ standings behind Purton and Ho.

It’s a tight finish, though, with Kah’s mount Red Lion failing by just a short head to reel in the winner, while Hollie Doyle was gaining on both the first two at the line on rank outsider Stormtrouper who finished strongly down the outside from last place on the turn. Kah is therefore the only jockey to score points in two different IJC races but that’s not enough to win her the title. By virtue of also each having a fourth-place finish from the earlier legs, it’s de Sousa and Marquand who are announced as joint-winners, each receiving a silver whip in addition to their half-share of first prize.

But there’s still one more race before the floodlights are switched off and, for much of the short straight, it finally looks as though Purton, who has been uncharacteristically quiet all night, ironically the only jockey not to score any points at all in the IJC, will finally bag a winner on Savaquin.

But, adopting the same tactics which took her close in the last race, Doyle produces Spirited Express from last place turning for home with a storming run down the outside which nails Savaquin on the line for a short head victory.

Both Marquand and Doyle, therefore, head back to Japan with a winner apiece on the Happy Valley card but for Purton, Moore and Australia’s James McDonald, who drew a blank on the night but will be officially named World’s Best Jockey on Friday, it’s on to Sha Tin on Sunday for the Hong Kong International Races.

The quality of the horses on show and the prize money on offer will be on another level entirely there, but it will take a lot to outshine the experience of a Wednesday night under the floodlights of Happy Valley.

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