As John Size steps ever closer to his 13th trainers’ championship the question is worth pondering, which title was his ‘best’?
By numbers, it’s hard to go past Size’s 2016/17 campaign, which could be argued is the greatest season ever by any trainer: a record 94 wins, 27 more than his nearest rival John Moore. The following season Size’s horses won the most prize money by any stable in history: more than HK$176 million.
Size has 66 wins and unless he goes on a tear over the final two meetings of the term, this won’t qualify as one of his top ten seasons. Horse racing is more than just statistics though. Legacies are shaped through story and if Size holds off David Hayes this season, it could be argued that his comeback from a subpar 2023/24 at age 71 is as good as any.
But his best season? Size’s first campaign in 2001/02 – the first of three straight championships to start his career – is by far the most important and influential by any trainer in the way that it reshaped a jurisdiction.
In a recent interview, retiring trainer Benno Yung described his first impressions of Size: “He looked like a farmer,” he said with a chuckle. “But after my first conversation with him I came home and told my wife and daughter ‘this guy is going to be a legend’.”
Yung was Size’s assistant through his first 12 seasons (including seven titles) but that ‘rookie’ season was remarkable. Size was so painstakingly patient and had so few runners early on that a trackwork rider that had joined the stable quit, citing pressure from home; “My wife says he is not good enough,” the rider told Yung, as Size strolled through the first two months of the term. Then, Yung says, “John made a lot of people look bad.”
A trickle of stable transfers to Size’s yard became a storm surge as he took underperforming horses and won successive races. Electronic Unicorn was the most famous: he came to Size having won one from nine the previous season for Ricky Yiu and won three from his next four including the Stewards’ Cup, and was second to Eishin Preston in the 2001 Hong Kong Mile.
Electronic Unicorn was Horse of the Year for Size in his first season but it wasn’t the premiership win or the individual success stories that caused a seismic shift – it was Size’s methodology.
In Hong Kong, where trackwork times are published and barrier trial replays are available at the click of a button, the formula is there for all to see. Size’s style is, in a basic sense, slower: slower gallops, daily swimming and far more frequent barrier trials.
Before Size, trainers would use a set of starting gates at the top of the straight on the all-weather track to sprint horses up the straight like a Quarter Horse. Those starting gates are now in storage and rarely used. New trainers are more likely to follow Size’s lead, opting for a steady progression to build a foundation of fitness, rather than an aggressive approach.
Size has made such a science of his style that it is hard to imagine somebody changing the game in a similar way again.
Next season another Australian James Cummings starts his Hong Kong career and he shares a common link with Size through the ratings and form guru Dominic Beirne, a mentor to both. In that way, Cummings is more likely to be a Size disciple than attempt to reinvent the wheel.
Perhaps the newer facilities at Conghua, or the implementation of treadmills next season, can facilitate a new approach that could match the influence Size had in 2001.
It will take more than new facilities to match Size for horsemanship, work ethic and attention to detail though. If Size, as expected, is crowned champion again this season, it should be a title celebrated as much as his first. ∎
