From Boland To The Big Time: Brenton Avdulla’s Hong Kong Innings Is Building Momentum

BRENTON AVDULLA is lining up his approach shot on the first hole of the Eden Course at the Hong Kong Golf Club, just 12 hours on from celebrating a Class 3 win under lights at Happy Valley.

The fairways of Fanling are a serene contrast to the previous evening’s busy action at the city track, but competitiveness remains a constant presence for him and his playing group, which features four of Hong Kong’s riding roster.

“We’re in the sand but we’re still in play,” Avdulla says before giving a nod to his playing partner, Lyle Hewitson, who has found the heart of the green and put the pair in contention of winning the opening hole.

Avdulla, who is also joined on the course by Luke Ferraris and Harry Bentley, says he took up golf at the beginning of the racing season and tries to squeeze in a round here and there outside of a busy work schedule and active family life.

But his miscue into the bunker on the first hole is a rare offbeat moment for a man who, in golfing parlance, has been draining putts for fun on the racetrack.

Over the past six weeks, the Australian has capitalised on Zac Purton’s absence, claiming 14 wins in 10 meetings including the second leg of the four-year-old series, the Classic Cup, aboard Rubylot.

He currently sits third in the jockeys’ championship and has the plum ride aboard David Hayes’ Classic Cup winner to look forward to in Sunday’s Hong Kong Derby, so it’s no wonder the former Sydney champion jockey is enjoying life in the Hong Kong pressure cooker.

“Things are going well and the opportunities obviously help,” Avdulla said. “We’ll just try and make a bit of hay while the sun shines. It’s nice to be able to get some good opportunities on some nice horses and be able to capitalise on it.

“I rode 33 winners last season with a couple of Group 1s on California Spangle and the goal was to try and finish top five this season, however many winners that was.”

A double at Sha Tin on Saturday took Avdulla to 33 wins for the 2024-25 campaign, equalling last season’s tally with 34 meetings remaining.

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing for the 34-year-old since he swapped Sydney for Sha Tin in 2023. Like many champion riders who arrive in Hong Kong, despite his Group 1 CV and big-race prowess back in his home country, he had to grind away for the chance to build connections with the sometimes fickle Hong Kong owners.

“It’s been a slow process,” he said. “It will be two years in May since I arrived here and it was a little bit frustrating at the beginning when you’re not getting a go.

“But I knew it was going to take time to build relationships with the owners and trainers here. Like anything really, it’s about getting an opportunity and being good enough to make the most of it.

“I’ve won a championship in Sydney and had Group 1 winners around the world so I believe in my ability and I know I’m good enough if I get the right opportunities. Lately it’s been a good feeling to go to the races expecting to ride a winner, two or even more instead of hoping to maybe get one. It’s a different mentality altogether.”

Avdulla’s call up to ride in Hong Kong may have been pretty conventional – a jockey with a Sydney premiership and over 10 Group 1 wins to his name was a good fit for the Jockey Club’s licensing committee – but his journey to the saddle some 19 years ago was far from the norm.

As the son of a bookmaker in Victoria, Avdulla would accompany his father, Peter, to the races while also trying to juggle his hectic sports schedule, which largely consisted of cricket and Australian rules football.

As he talks about his sporting endeavours before riding, Avdulla lets onto the fact he was a handy opening batsman and spent plenty of time playing backyard cricket as a child with his old neighbour and now Australian Test bowler, Scott Boland.

“I never grew up around horses or anything like that and I enjoyed my sports like footy and cricket,” Avdulla said. “I wasn’t bad at cricket and played district level sort of stuff and my neighbours behind me growing up were Scott and Nick Boland, so we used to play backyard cricket and club cricket together all the way through the junior stuff.

“But I used to go along to the races when Dad was working and I loved it, so I probably had a decision to make when I was about 14 with what path I wanted to go on. I decided to go down the racing path even though I hadn’t even put a headcollar on a horse when I was 15. I left school and went into the stables and started to learn how to deal with horses from then.”

Within 12 months, Avdulla had gone from learning to ride on the stable pony at Jim and John Moloney’s yard in Caulfield to his first race ride at Bendigo in October 2007, where he won aboard $10 shot Associate.

“It was a pretty whirlwind 12 months,” he said. “To think I didn’t have any experience a year before my first winner and then to fast forward to now where I’m 34 and riding in Hong Kong, it’s pretty amazing. Racing has given me a lot and I love what I do. It’s been a hell of a ride so far.”

That ride has brought him, his wife Taylor and his two children to Racecourse Gardens, the on-site accommodation where the majority of Hong Kong’s jockeys and trainers live at Sha Tin.

While living opposite, above or directly below your weighing room rivals as well as most of the Hong Kong training roster is a long way from life in Sydney, Avdulla acknowledges that it’s part and parcel of a lifestyle that he and his family have quickly become accustomed to.

“I enjoy life here,” he said. “As long as my family and kids are happy to be here, we’ll make Hong Kong home.

“Instead of riding four or five days a week in Australia, where some days I wouldn’t even see the kids, I live on track and there’s a good camaraderie with the boys in the weighing room.”

With racing twice a week, barrier trials twice a week and trackwork most mornings in Hong Kong, the schedule demands plenty from the participants. But it’s a programme that allows Avdulla to spend more time doing what he enjoys, which largely consists of family time, the odd afternoon on the golf course and keeping up to date with how his greyhounds are getting on back in Australia. 

“I enjoy playing golf, having date nights with the missus and taking the kids out a lot. I’m definitely much more present in my family’s life here than I was at home,” he said. “We have a three-year-old, a five-year-old and another little one on the way in June so at their ages, that’s much more important to me than all the travelling and not being home as much.

“I also really love the dogs. I was building right into it before I came to Hong Kong so I have quite a few at the moment and we’re having a bit of luck. We had our first Group 1 winner during the year so that’s been good as well.”

Having some time between meetings also allows the bookmaker’s son to get his head stuck in the form book, a skill that is especially crucial in Hong Kong given that jockeys can’t have agents and must arrange their own rides.

“I do feel like I’ve always been good with my form and I’m very good with my homework,” he said. “Growing up from a young age, I was always more form related than anything else and I can probably tell you what most horses have done even if I haven’t ridden them.

“I suppose it might be a bit of an edge, especially in a place like Hong Kong where it’s very tactical and there is a small pool of horses.”

Fortunately, Avdulla does not have to dive deep into the formbook to know that he heads to Sunday’s Hong Kong Derby with a leading chance of tasting success in the city’s most prestigious race.

He stood aloft in his irons when Rubylot passed the winning post in front in the Classic Cup at the beginning of the month and Avdulla will be hoping for an even bigger dose of elation if Hayes’ gelding can unleash his potent turn of foot and win the Derby as well.

“I’m really looking forward to it, he’s been a great horse to me,” Avdulla said. “I think he’ll run the trip, he’s come out of the right form and I expect him to run well.

“I can’t control something like where we are drawn, I can only focus on giving the best ride I can and trying to get the most out of him. Let’s see what happens.” ∎

Racing Roundtable

Hong Kong Derby: What It Means And Who Wins?

Sha Tin Blitz

Brenton Avdulla Rides Three Winners In 65 Minutes

Riding Abroad

Jimmy Orman Wants To Call Hong Kong Home