Hong Kong Jockey Club | Horse Racing Free Tips

Golden Sixty Named Hong Kong’s Horse Of The Year

Golden Sixty's outstanding exploits during the 2020/21 season earned the multiple Group 1 victor the Hong Kong Horse of the Year award at a special presentation function held at Happy Valley Clubhouse tonight, Tuesday, 13 July.

The Francis Lui-trained five-year-old was also named Champion Miler and Champion Middle-Distance Horse. In addition, the son of Medaglia d'Oro also secured the bulk of the public vote to claim the Most Popular Horse title for the second consecutive year.

The 2019/20 season's Champion Four-Year-Old showed further improvement this term, with a perfect record of seven wins from seven starts, with the last four wins all at G1 level. Since September 2019, he has maintained an unbeaten run of 14 and he is the first horse to capture the G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile (1600m), G1 Stewards' Cup (1600m), G1 Citi Hong Kong Gold Cup (2000m) and G1 FWD Champions Mile (1600m) in the same season, highlighting his versatility and brilliance.

Golden Sixty is the fourth horse in Hong Kong racing history after Good Ba Ba, Able Friend and Beauty Generation to win the Horse of the Year title in the same season as winning both the G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile and G1 FWD Champions Mile. In addition to his four G1 wins, Golden Sixty also took the G2 Jockey Club Mile (1600m), G2 Oriental Watch Sha Tin Trophy (1600m) and the G3 Celebration Cup (1400m).

Hot King Prawn was named the season's Champion Sprinter. The John Size-trained six-year-old opened his G1 winning account in the Centenary Sprint Cup (1200m) in January this year. The Denman gelding was a steady performer throughout the season, finishing out of money only once in his five starts since last October. He also won the G2 Jockey Club Sprint (1200m) last November.

Panfield was crowned Champion Stayer. The Tony Millard-trained Chilean import was already a G1 victor prior to his arrival in Hong Kong. After opening his Hong Kong winning account in a Class 2 event over 2000m, the Lookin At Lucky colt ran a gallant third behind Sky Darci in the BMW Hong Kong Derby (2000m). He then achieved a career-peak when defeating older rivals, including Exultant, in the G1 Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup (2400m) in May.

Sky Darci was the deserving winner of the Four-Year-Old Champion award. The Caspar Fownes-trained galloper won five races this season, including the BMW Hong Kong Derby, the final leg of the Four-Year-Old Classic Series and the G3 Lion Rock Trophy (1600m). In his final start of the season, he also finished a creditable second behind stablemate Sky Field in another G3 event, the Premier Cup (1400m).

Fantastic Treasure was named the season's Champion Griffin after remaining unbeaten with five wins from five starts in his rookie season in Hong Kong. The David Hayes-trained three-year-old achieved his career highlight to date in a Class 2 1400m contest at Sha Tin, defeating seasoned gallopers to achieve a rating of 94.

The John Size-trained Courier Wonder was named the season's Most Improved Horse. After starting the campaign on a rating of 52, the Sacred Falls gelding soared 55 points to a mark of 107 after remaining unbeaten with five wins from five starts.

Caspar Fownes was honoured with the Champion Trainer title. The battle for the championship was settled before the season finale and Fownes was most deserving of his fourth title, having led for the majority of the season before repelling a strong charge from 11-time champion, John Size.

Joao Moreira was crowned Champion Jockey for a fourth time. The Brazilian rider had a fantastic season of achievements, including becoming only the third jockey in history to notch 1000 winners in Hong Kong. He also won the public vote to earn the Most Popular Jockey of the Year accolade.

The winner of the Tony Cruz Award for the season's leading homegrown rider will be revealed and presented during racing at Wednesday's season finale (14 July) at Happy Valley.

Former Hong Kong Champions Beauty Generation and Exultant were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Awards for their great contributions to Hong Kong racing.

The winners for the 2020/21 season are listed as follows:

Award	Winner	Owner	Trainer
Horse of the Year	Golden Sixty	Stanley Chan Ka Leung	Francis Lui
Champion Trainer	Caspar Fownes
Champion Jockey	Joao Moreira
Champion Four-Year-Old	Sky Darci	Jessica Kwan Mun Hang	Caspar Fownes
Champion Sprinter	Hot King Prawn	Lau Sak Hong	John Size
Champion Miler	Golden Sixty	Stanley Chan Ka Leung	Francis Lui
Champion Middle-Distance Horse	Golden Sixty	Stanley Chan Ka Leung	Francis Lui
Champion Stayer	Panfield	Yue Yun Hing	Tony Millard
Champion Griffin	Fantastic Treasure	Ken Leung Woon Kin & Leung Kwun	David Hayes
Most Improved Horse	Courier Wonder	Mr & Mrs Chadwick Mok Cham Hung	John Size
Most Popular Horse of the Year	Golden Sixty	Stanley Chan Ka Leung	Francis Lui
Most Popular Jockey of the Year	Joao Moreira
Lifetime Achievement Award	Beauty Generation	Patrick Kwok Ho Chuen	John Moore / David Hayes
Lifetime Achievement Award	Exultant	Eddie Wong Ming Chak & Wong Leung Sau Hing	Tony Cruz
Most Admired Overseas Horse	Almond Eye

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10 Things to Know About The World Pool at Royal Ascot

Edited Press Release

In advance of the five-day Royal Ascot meeting kicking off on Tuesday, below are 10 things to know about the World Pool, which will be utilised for the third year at the historic event.

World Pool was created by Hong Kong Jockey Club and brings together racing fans from over 20 nations so everyone is effectively betting into one pool creating huge liquidity. It's like the EuroMillions version of the lottery.
World Pool in the UK is operated by the Tote. You can bet with the Tote at tote.co.uk, on the Tote App, at a racecourse, or with a bookmaker as most offer Tote bets in shops and online.
Without bookmakers' commission to pay, the Tote can offer the best value to their direct customers via the Tote website. Here they operate Tote+ (Tote Plus), giving an extra 10% on every winning dividend–that means a £100 win becomes £110 on tote.co.uk. In addition Tote Guarantee ensures the Tote win price will also match or exceed the industry SP, so Tote customers will never feel short-changed on winning bets.
The pool betting model means the Tote is agnostic about results so welcomes winning customers and will not restrict bet sizes.
The international nature of World Pool means there is some great value to be found across markets. For example, Hong Kong racing fans will tend to over bet on jockeys they know so shorten their price, meaning other runners are over-priced respective to their chances.
There are currently five bet types included in World Pool. These are Win, Place, Trifecta (first, second and third in correct order), Quinella (first two in either order) and Swinger (two in the first three).
This is the third year of World Pool at Royal Ascot with pools growing to £137 million in liquidity last year, compared to £19 million before World Pool.
The 2021 Derby was a World Pool event for the first time and saw the pool grow from £1.7 million to over £26 million with winners paying more on the Tote. For example, Adayar paid £20.24 on the Tote compared to 16-1 with bookmakers.
After Royal Ascot there are another 10 more World Pool days on British racing in 2021, including Coral-Eclipse Day, QIPCO King George Diamond Day, first three days of the Qatar Goodwood Festival, Shergar Cup Day, the first three days of the Welcome to Yorkshire Ebor Festival and QIPCO Champions Day.
World Pool means bigger financial returns to British racing through increased media rights payments to racecourses and more revenue generated via pool betting.

For all the latest information on World Pool during Royal Ascot follow @ToteRacing.

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Agreement To Allow HKJC To Host Racing at Conghua

An agreement executed Friday by the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) with the Guangzhou Municipal Government is set to strengthen the Club's foothold on the Chinese Mainland, with the prospect of staging “international-standard' racing at Conghua Racecourse (CRC), heretofore known as the Conghua Training Centre (CTC).

Located about 200 kilometres and approximately a three-hour car trip (four hours by horse float) from Hong Kong, Conghua was opened to great fanfare in 2018. Built on 150 hectares on a site that hosted the equestrian events at the 2010 Asian Games, the state-of-the-art facility presented an opportunity to ship horses away from the rugged, concrete environment of Sha Tin Racecourse into a more serene and remote location, with stabling for over 600 horses, training tracks and accommodations for staff. Horses routinely return from a spell at Conghua refreshed and revived.

The HKJC successfully staged five exhibition races (non pari-mutuel) at Conghua in March 2019, the first time Hong Kong horses had raced competitively on the Mainland. The HKJC reported that some 1,700 Mainland residents were on hand. A similar event was scheduled to take place in 2020, but those plans were scuppered by the coronavirus outbreak.

The agreement signed Friday allow for the HKJC to conduct racing at CTC “under the Club's racing rules and regulations based on international best practices.” A regular racing programme could commence as soon as 2025.

The Club also announced plans to upgrade the infrastructure at CTC, including the construction of a “new and iconic grandstand” in addition to extra stabling, training facilities and expanded staff accommodations. The municipal government has agreed to build an additional access road to the facility.

A third key component of the agreement is the development of an “equine value chain,” including an international equine quarantine facility and other equine-related initiatives, such as veterinary professional development and the exploration of a Thoroughbred trading centre and the promotion of equestrian sports in Guangzhou.

“Building on our respective strengths, this Agreement will substantially deepen the Club's strategic cooperative partnership with the Guangzhou Municipal Government with the aim of achieving our shared vision of the Guangzhou-Hong Kong Racing Economic Cluster,” said HKJC CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges. “Since its opening in 2018, CRC has become an integral part of Hong Kong's world-class racing. We will fully leverage CRC's world-class facilities and talent within the Club to implement this exciting, but challenging initiative.”

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Golden Sixty Stretches Win Streak To 14 In Champions Mile As Sha Tin Reopens To Limited Attendance

Golden Sixty needed all the urgings from his rider, Vincent Ho, and the 5,719 in attendance at Hong Kong's Sha Tin racecourse to secure Sunday's Group 1 FWD Champions Mile.

Recording his 14th consecutive win and fourth Group 1 in total, the world's joint top-rated miler powered into the lead rounding the home turn but was made to sweat for his win by a fast-finishing More Than This, ridden by Joao Moreira.

“He has never been chased and we learnt today that he still can fight when something chases him, not just when he is doing the chasing, which is good,” Ho said of Golden Sixty.

“That was amazing (to have a crowd), a big thanks to all the fans today who came out, it makes such a difference, the atmosphere and everything is so much different.

“It's been a good season, seven races for Golden Sixty and I'm happy for him to win this, hopefully he will have a break now until next season, he had a couple of tough runs these past two,” the rider said.

Japan secured a sixth win in the FWD QEII Cup with Loves Only You, also ridden by Ho, leading home a Japanese 1-2-3-4. Triple Crown-winning filly Daring Tact was second.

“I can't describe it,” Ho said, reacting to a pair of G1 successes in the space of 40 minutes.

“I don't dare to look back until the finish line but she was amazing. I'm grateful that the Japanese connections asked me to ride her.

“The QEII Cup is one of my dream goals as well as the Derby and the December internationals, a QEII win means a lot.

“It's amazing today with Golden Sixty and Loves Only You. It's definitely one of the highlights, I'll enjoy it for sure.”

The connections of Loves Only You celebrate the filly's QEII win

Wellington, trained by Richard Gibson and ridden by Alexis Badel, showed an impressive turn of foot to notch his first Group 1 in the Chairman's Sprint Prize earlier on the card.

“It's fantastic to see the fans back today and I'm just delighted for the owners. They were one of the first owners in my stable when I came here. They've been very loyal and supportive and it's a great satisfaction to source and deliver such a great horse”, said Gibson.

With crowds returning in safe numbers, three fantastic Group 1 races and betting turnover hitting a record HK$1.611 billion (approx. US$207 million) for the Champions Day meeting, Hong Kong Jockey Club Club CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges said: “It's great to have people coming back to the racecourse for a meeting of this quality. Golden Sixty kept his unbeaten record and, if you look at the performances of Loves Only You and Wellington, it was an amazing day.”

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