HONG KONG’S SENSATIONAL SEASON

An extraordinary 2022/23 Hong Kong horse racing season ended in remarkable fashion on Sunday, 16 July at Sha Tin Racecourse and reinforced Hong Kong’s world-class racing with history-making performances of outstanding horses, trainers and jockeys.

With only 1250 horses in training – or around 0.7 percent of the world’s horse population – Hong Kong’s racing once again displayed its worldclass quality.

Golden Sixty, the first horse in the history of Hong Kong racing to have secured three consecutive Horse of the Year crowns, and fellow Gr1 winners, Lucky Sweynesse and Romantic Warrior, are entrenched in the top seven of the LONGINES World’s Best Racehorse Rankings.

They delivered astounding performances against international rivals in the international spotlight on FWD Champions Day on 30 April

2023 and led a clean sweep of the three Group 1 features of the day — G1 FWD Champions Mile (1600m), G1 Chairman’s Sprint Prize (1200m) and G1 FWD QEII Cup (2000m).

World-class trainer John Size became the first trainer to win 12 Hong Kong trainers’ championships.

He has trained 1493 winners in Hong Kong and continues to excel with an uncanny ability to patiently develop young talent into elite top-level performers.

Zac Purton clinched his sixth Hong Kong jockeys’ championship with a single-season record of 179 wins. Home-grown jockey Vincent Ho was crowned the Tony Cruz Award for a fourth time with the most wins in a season. They are all shining examples of the rich pool of racing talents in Hong Kong, which serves as a key driver for the continuous development of Hong Kong racing.

“Hong Kong’s world-class racing is not only built on our state-of-art racing facilities, but more importantly a rich and growing pool of racing talents across all levels from trainers, jockeys, veterinarians to stable assistants and farriers etc. The Hong Kong Jockey Club is committed to attracting world-class talents from overseas and nurturing high-potential home-grown talents. I am delighted to see our racing talents and the horses they train and take care of, deliver remarkable performances this season to local and global fans. They are the future of Hong Kong’s racing,” said the Club’s Chief Executive Officer, Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges.

The season also marks a full return of Hong Kong’s racing to normalcy after three years of the COVID pandemic.