‘Just Win’: Tony Cruz Still Wants More After 50 Years In Front
Tonight’s Happy Valley meeting is 50 years to the day since Tony Cruz’s first electrifying win as a jockey and the 67-year-old is still winning.
THE TERM ‘God-given talent’ comes up a lot when asking rivals about Tony Cruz’s skills as a horseman. It should come as no surprise then that before the living legend embarked on his career as a jockey and then trainer, he said a simple prayer.
“My family were all Catholics and my mum used to say, ‘Ask God and you shall receive’ – so I prayed to be a champion apprentice, I got it. I prayed to be a champion jockey, I got that too. I prayed to ride great horses in Europe and in big races, then I got that. And I prayed to be a champion trainer, I got it as well. I prayed that I wanted to win races and I was winning races all the time,” he says.
It’s one of those brilliant-blue-sky days in Hong Kong where the mountains appear rendered in 4K, high definition. Cruz is sitting on a deck that overlooks Sha Tin Racecourse, and, on a day like today, far beyond. Looking out over the racetrack where he has notched many famous victories and past Lion Rock, one of the other great icons of Hong Kong, beyond Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.
December 11, 2024, marks 50 years to the day since Cruz, at that time a 17-year-old apprentice, won his first race in Hong Kong, at Happy Valley. He went straight to the front and rode for his life in a 1400m Class 6 Handicap aboard a horse named Cirrus for Siberian trainer George Sofronoff. Cruz kicked away on Cirrus to win by six lengths on the defunct inner sand track.
His memory of that night and race, like all of his recollections of a career unlike any other in Hong Kong racing history, are crystal clear.
“It was raining and it was so bloody cold, it was almost zero degrees,” Cruz says. “Everybody’s looking for gloves. I just went for it, nobody could catch me. I just knew that the best place to be was in front. You had to be. Jump fast and you go. Nobody can catch you. And I remember I dropped my whip 100 meters from the winning post, I made the stewards’ report.”
Happy Valley’s sand track not only favoured frontrunners because it was tight – just 1,280m in circumference – but because of the granular surface, which churning hooves would deliver in a stinging sand blast to the face of any horse or jockey unfortunate enough to be stuck behind the leaders.
“It was beach sand and it had some kind of coral and stones in it,” Cruz says. “They didn’t filter it out properly. It would cut and sting your face. I tell you, it was a good place to be in front. If not, then within two strides, you couldn’t see with your goggles. You needed about three, four pairs of goggles – when one gets clogged up you’d pull it down until you couldn’t see out of the next one – It felt like a bucket of water hitting your face.”
Cruz’s win in the meeting’s sixth and final race didn’t just make the stewards’ report, it was headline news. As the son of popular veteran jockey Johnny Cruz, the young phenomenon was part of the first intake to the Jockey Club’s new Apprentice Jockeys’ School and in the spotlight from the start. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) racing editor Robin Parke – a hard marker – led his story with the youngster’s maiden win in an article headlined: “Young ‘uns steal the limelight” (fellow apprentice Eddie Lo also won a race at the night meeting).
“After that first win I felt very happy about myself and I felt like I’m going to do this business all the time,” Cruz says with an enthusiasm that makes it seem like that Class 6 on the sand happened just last week. “After the race I was thinking, ‘I’m going to be winning a lot of races.’ Like this is what I am meant to do. I found that this is my game. I enjoyed it very much. I like it, I am coming back and I want to be champion.”
By the end of that season it was clear Hong Kong racing had a new star. Jim McGrath’s report in the SCMP said of Cruz’s treble at the season finale on May 26 that “Cruz rode three winners by employing dashing but intelligent riding tactics which put some of his more experienced jockey rivals to shame.”
The most common recollection of Cruz as a rider in Hong Kong is that of a fearless frontrunner. That much is true, he was an outstanding on-pace rider blessed with great hands and was an exceptional judge of pace, but he was far from one-dimensional.
Cruz says his predisposition to being on-pace simply came down to practicality, and not just when riding on the sand to avoid the dreaded kickback. Later, when he became champion for the first time in 1978, being in front was simply the safest place to be in an era when outside forces sometimes conspired to control races and often wanted favourites beaten.
But then there were Cruz’s riding skills, his ability to get a horse to settle into an energy-conserving rhythm when leading where other riders couldn’t.
“I was riding in Singapore and I remember shaking hands with a trainer there, and he asked ‘how come your hands are smooth?’ Smooth? I didn’t know what he meant at first but normally all these jockeys have got a lot of calluses in their hands. Thick skin. I didn’t because I didn’t fight the horses. I just said to him, ‘maybe I have good hands’,” Cruz recalls.
Cruz’s career as jockey is still unmatched by any Hong Konger. He is the most successful ‘homegrown star,’ from the very first class to go through the Jockey Club’s apprentices school.
In Hong Kong, he won 946 races when the season was far shorter than today’s 88-meeting marathon. He won six championships during an era in which his great rival Gary Moore won seven. Cruz also partnered one of the all-time greats to race in the city, Co-Tack, whom he rode to a Hong Kong Derby victory and many feature wins while hauling enormous weights.
In Europe, Cruz’s exploits put Hong Kong racing on the map: he won major Group 1 races in France, England and Ireland, riding for some of the richest owners in the world and combining with horses like back-to-back Champion Stakes winner Triptych.
The other unique aspect of Cruz’s last fifty years is the second act as a champion trainer, and that has been every bit as influential as his incredible riding career.
Cruz started training in 1997, won a championship within two years and did it again with a then-record 91 wins in 2004-05.
“I think being a champion trainer is harder than being champion jockey,” Cruz replies without hesitation when asked to compare his ‘two careers’. “As a trainer you’re limited to the amount of horses you can have and then there is the Hong Kong system. Horses go up in the ratings and it is hard to win.”
Those limitations haven’t stopped Cruz, who is also known for the sheer number of top class horses he has prepared, from Silent Witness through Bullish Luck, California Memory, Blazing Speed, Peniaphobia, Pakistan Star, Exultant, Time Warp and California Spangle.
Just like when Cruz trained his 1500th winner in April 2024, he isn’t getting overly sentimental about the 50-year milestone eight months later.
“Obviously, whether you are a jockey or a trainer, the whole idea is to try to win as many races as you can. So even when I win 1,500, I’m not thinking about that last win, you just want to win more,” he says.
Cruz could continue training until he’s 75 under the current Jockey Club rules, so what does he pray for now, given that he has already won everything of note in Hong Kong as a jockey and trainer?
“To win big races all the time,” Cruz says. “That’s my profession, it’s to win races, same as when I was a jockey. This trainer’s life is the same. The whole idea is to get the horse happy and healthy, avoid injury and win as many races as you can.” ∎
