Jimmy Ting has never saddled a runner in the Hong Kong Classic Mile. But he has won it before – as a jockey.
Twenty-six years ago, when the race was still called the Hong Kong Classic Trial, a young Ting produced the finest moment of his riding career aboard 12-1 shot Industrialist. Sensing there would be a lack of pace in the race, he asked trainer Brian Kan Ping-chee if he could lead from a wide draw. Ting’s instincts were right. He took control of the race, kicked clear and never looked back.
“He was a great horse,” Ting said this week. “If he was running now, he’d be considered a champion.”
Ting only got the ride because Kan had fallen out with his stable jockey, Irishman Jimmy Quinn, over a ride on Master Fay at the Chinese New Year meeting a week earlier. Kan suspended the jockey and gave his former apprentice a last-minute call-up. It proved an expensive feud for Quinn – months later he received a season-ending ban after being caught on CCTV smashing up Kan’s car, including the car stereo, in the Sha Tin residential quarters.
Kan, never one for diplomatic understatement, delivered a pointed sideswipe after the Classic Trial win: “I don’t need a stable jockey.”
“You have to take your hat off to Ting, who did a wonderful job,” said the then Director of Racing Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, now the Jockey Club’s CEO.
Industrialist went on to win the Hong Kong Gold Cup and QEII Cup that season. But for Ting, that January afternoon at Sha Tin remained the highlight of 140 winners across 15 years in the saddle – even if the afterglow was short-lived.
When the Derby came around six weeks later, Kan replaced him with Frenchman Gerald Mosse. It was simply how things worked for local jockeys back then. The big rides went to the expatriates.
Times have changed. On Sunday, Ting sends out Little Paradise as one of the leading chances in the Classic Mile with Vincent Ho in the saddle – currently Hong Kong’s third-ranked rider and the man who won this race aboard Golden Sixty in 2020.
That victory launched both horse and jockey towards greatness. Golden Sixty swept the Four-Year-Old Classic Series and became arguably the finest horse Hong Kong has produced. Ho proved a homegrown rider could deliver when it mattered most. Needless to say, if Ho wins, there will be no late call-up for a foreigner.
Now established among the elite, Ho replaces leading rider Zac Purton – who opted to ride key rival Sagacious Life – and has galloped Little Paradise twice in the lead-up and likes what he has found.
“He is a nice horse. Lovely temperament, he listens to the rider, balanced – everything was good when I galloped him,” Ho said. “He seems to be very flexible. If there is no pace, he can move forward. He can sit off them or be midfield and have the race-winning turn of foot. He can adapt.”
Ho said those tactical options will be important given the nature of four-year-old racing, where promising types like Little Paradise mix with horses being rushed through the system by ambitious owners.
“Some are coming with a higher rating – are they ready?” he said. “Some handle a mile, some need further, and some can’t even handle a mile. That is why sometimes it can be a bit messy. But whoever is in form will be competitive.”
Given the role a Classic Mile win meant to his own career, Ho understands the weight of the moment for Ting.
“Bringing Jimmy a Classic Series win would mean a lot,” he said.
Little Paradise has announced himself as a genuine contender this season. A son of Toronado – the same sire as the 2024 Classic Mile and Classic Cup winner Helios Express – he has risen from Class 4 to Class 2 with five wins from eight starts.
For Ting, whose stable managed just 20 winners last season and has been stationed in the lower ranks since obtaining a license in 2018, a headline horse could change everything.
“Normally, when the stable doesn’t have many horses, when you get a good horse, suddenly some horses come,” he told Idol Horse after the horse’s last win, a dominant Class 2 performance at 1400m.
He is quietly confident but refusing to get carried away.
“In this moment, I think he can win – but a race is a race,” Ting said. “If he can win, I will be happy. But first three is acceptable. He is a nice horse. This is the best distance, a mile, at this stage.”
For a trainer whose stable scraped by at times, Little Paradise represents a rare shot at the big time – and a chance to bookend a story that began more than a quarter of a century ago. ∎
