‘From The Bottom To The Top’: The Evolution Of Francis Lui

IF YOU WANT TO catch-up with trainer Francis Lui anytime soon, be ready to book at least a few days in advance and you better be flexible: everybody wants a piece of Hong Kong’s newest champion.

We settle on mid-morning breakfast, Wednesday 9.30am, squeezed in after the 65-year-old’s weekly personal training session and before yet another lunch with well-wishing owners. 

Lui is wearing his workout gear and a smile on his face that has been a permanent fixture since his remarkable come-from-behind Trainers’ Championship win on one of the greatest nights in Hong Kong racing history. 

As he slides into his regular window seat at the Ladies’ Purse Restaurant at the Sha Tin Racecourse Clubhouse, the relief on his face and in his body language is palpable. “I didn’t feel like we had the championship until that final race was over,” he says. “When I won, it was a release of pressure … It was a lot of pressure, because I tell you, at that time, you have to fight, you can’t give up.” 

Lui’s horses won four of the last five races of the 2023-24 season and pulled him back from a three-race deficit to his former assistant Pierre Ng with five races to go, clinching the championship in the 831st and final race of the season. 

Immediately afterwards, before Lui lifted his first Trainers’ Championship trophy, he was mobbed by his stable staff, shared a moment with his adult children Vincent, Angie and Stephanie, and then, in a display of how popular he is among his peers, embraced by fellow trainers and past champions Caspar Fownes, Dennis Yip and Tony Cruz. 

“That was touching,” he said of the spontaneous gesture by his rivals. “It is a big achievement for a trainer, especially for a local boy like me that has gone from the bottom to the top. It isn’t easy.” 

The son of a stablehand Lui Shiu-Pun who worked for legendary trainers Jerry Ng Chi-Lam and Derek “TC” Cheng, Lui recalls memories that date back before Sha Tin was built, when horses were still trained in Happy Valley and horses walked down Shan Kwan Road past the mafoo quarters on the way to trackwork, rubber shoes strapped to their hooves to stop them from slipping on the sloped concrete road. 

Lui became a jockey and was apprenticed to one of Hong Kong’s Russian trainers, George Sofronoff, and rode 36 winners between 1975 and 1982. But when Lui talks about starting at the bottom, he doesn’t necessarily mean those humble beginnings at Happy Valley or as a battling jockey, he is also referring to the tough times he has faced as a trainer.

Through much of Lui’s 28-season career he has been stationed in the lower half of the rankings. In his first 21 seasons after his debut in 1996-97, Lui averaged just over 25 wins per season. 

At the end of the 2009-10 season he lost future star Ambitious Dragon to Tony Millard, after the horse’s three-year-old season. 

As Ambitious Dragon was winding up a career that included a Hong Kong Derby, four other Group 1s and two Horse of the Year awards, Lui was reeling: he won just 13 races in 2012-13. 

A top tier sprinter named Lucky Bubbles put Lui back on the map in 2015 and his fortunes began to turn. Then when Golden Sixty burst onto the scene, Lui’s stock really began to rise.

After Golden Sixty’s breakout season in 2018-19, he went close to winning the title in 2019-20 when second to Ricky Yiu and was again second to Size two seasons ago. Lui hasn’t let go of contender status since and has averaged 63 wins per season for the last five years. 

Along the way, through longevity and his late career rise, Lui has quietly moved into sixth on the all-time list for most wins, behind legends John Moore, John Size, Tony Cruz, Caspar Fownes and Ricky Yiu. 

It wasn’t so long ago that Lui was losing star horses to rival trainers. Now he has more quality problems. That list of lunch requests doesn’t just include his own owners: there are plenty of others who want to put their horses in the champion stable. Not all can be accommodated. Hard conversations will have to be had with the owners of horses that will be moved on. 

“There’s too many people to catch up with,” Lui says on his off-season schedule. “It’s not really my style, but we are going to have to have a party. I can’t catch up with all of the people, too many long dinners, it’s a waste of time. So we will need to make it one big celebration that everybody can enjoy.” 

You get the sense he would rather be walking his beagle, Dee, around Sha Tin or relaxing with his cats Zero and Luffy than sitting through a long lunch or late dinner. But Lui, in his own kind mannered way, is now an all-time great. He doesn’t scream about his success from the rooftops but he doesn’t have to: he trains the horse many believe to be Hong Kong’s greatest ever and now, like those six trainers ahead of him on the all-time wins list, he is a champion too. 

“I have to thank Golden Sixty for my success in the last few years,” Lui said. “A horse like him is so good, you just have to maintain his health and fitness. He has that great fighting heart, but you can’t create that. You can’t train that heart into them. Golden Sixty has just given me more opportunities.”

“I have a lot of experience choosing horses …maybe some of the ones I had the choice of before weren’t so good. You can’t just create a good horse out of nothing, if they haven’t got the will to fight, they just haven’t got it.” 

“After Golden Sixty more owners came to me and I have more choices … I have some experience with horses that are talented, but also the ones that are just so-so, that experience helps too. I feel we are choosing the right ones now.”

Indeed, Lui’s four champion-clinching winners from Sunday all scream upside. Chancheng Glory hit triple figure ratings with a fifth season win on Sunday, but the style of the victory suggested he will be competitive with the better milers soon, and it would seem certain that the others – Steps Ahead, Packing Hermod and Patch Of Theta – are heading higher in a hurry. 

Asked for the pick of them, Lui nominated the 74-rated Packing Hermod as the one to watch. “We will be aiming for next year’s four-year-old series, we just might have to get his rating up a little first,” he says.

Four tables up from us in the Ladies’ Purse, Pierre Ng walks in and takes a seat with an owner. Asked whether he has spoken to Ng since delivering a heartbreaking loss to his rival – who led by as many as 15 wins during the season – Lui says, “Not yet, he came to me and shook my hand and congratulated me before the last race and I said to him ‘it’s not over yet,’, but I haven’t seen him since.” Asked whether or not we can get a photo of the two together, Lui laughs, “you can ask him.”

Of course Ng agrees and there is nothing but love and respect, “That was a great night, amazing, congratulations,” Ng says. “We put on a good show.” 

It was only two years ago that Ng was Lui’s assistant, and now they sit together atop a championship table. 

As we walk out through the clubhouse foyer, Lui is surprised when asked about the top five of the championship being without an expat for the first time. 

“Wow, so Ricky Yiu third, Tony Cruz fourth and Danny Shum fifth? What about John Size?” 

Seventh. 

Lui raises his eyebrows in surprise and seems to be pondering the shift in power.

He stops for a photo, says goodbye and is on his way to lunch. Another owner request and one more set of high quality problems. 

Given the trajectory of his recent rise, maybe we haven’t seen the best of Francis Lui yet?