Smith, Stevens in Hong Kong for International Jockeys’
Championship
Local stars Zac Purton and Keith Yeung are eagerly anticipating Wednesday’s
spectacular International Jockeys’ Championship at Happy Valley even though
neither is necessarily brimming with confidence about their prospects of winning
the title.
Purton holds a commanding 20-win lead in the Hong Kong jockeys’ premiership
and is in rare form but is taking a realistic view about his chances against a
line-up of jockeys, which boasts more than 24,000 winners worldwide and may well
be the best ever assembled at one racecourse.
“It looks like I have a mixed bag but you never know,” Purton said. “I
probably had a better book of rides last year and couldn’t get it done, but
what’s on paper is not always everything in racing. It’s great to be part of it
and ride against some legends of the game.
“The competition’s tough and if I can win one (race), I’ll be pretty happy,”
said Purton who was runner-up on debut in last year’s IJC after he’d won the
2012 World Super Jockeys Series in Japan.
Two of those legendary competitors are U.S. Hall of Famers Mike Smith and
Gary Stevens. Smith is the all-time leader in Breeders’ Cup wins and took his
total to 20 with three successes at the meeting in November. Stevens snared a
double, including a first win in the Classic, at the BC meeting to take his
Breeders’ Cup tally to 10 wins.
Stevens aims to bounce back from an unproductive trip to Japan last weekend,
where he was 14th in the World Super Jockeys Series and ended up last aboard
Pants on Fire in the Japan Cup Dirt.
British champion jockey Richard Hughes, fresh off clinching victory Sunday in
the World Super Jockeys Series, will be hoping to cap an already stellar year
with victory in Hong Kong. Hughes has won nine Group 1 races this year including
his first two British classic victories and success at the Breeders’ Cup.
Stevens, at 50, is the oldest of the 12 competing jockeys while Maxime Guyon
(24), Japan’s Suguru Hamanaka (24) and Hong Kong’s Yeung (25) are the youngest.
Yeung competes in the series for the first time and is naturally eager to do
well on such a grand stage.
“I’m not sure if I can win it but it is really exciting to be riding against
the best jockeys in the world,” he said.
Perennial Hong Kong champion Douglas Whyte, a three-time winner of the IJC,
completes the line-up of local riders. Three of Whyte’s mounts have drawn
favorably with inside gates and the Durban Demon can never be discounted.
Add the names of Kerrin McEvoy, Christophe Soumillon, Mirco Demuro and Ryan
Moore, and race fans are promised an unparalleled standard of horsemanship on
Wednesday.
The contest comprises four turf handicaps. Three of them are 1,650-meter
(extended mile) events, carded as the
5TH,
6TH and
8TH races, respectively. The third leg, the
7TH race, is an about five-furlong dash.
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