Luke Middlebrook’s Hong Kong Season Review

Lui vs Ng: The Titanic Trainer Tussle

The Season Finale battle for the 2023/24 Trainers’ Championship between Francis Lui and Pierre Ng promised to be one for the ages, and it didn’t disappoint.

Entering the final fixture at Sha Tin, Ng held sway with 67 wins to his former boss Lui’s 66, and 54 second placings to Lui’s 53.

The last day brought the drama that only Hong Kong racing can: early success from Ng gave him a three-race lead, but four wins from the final five races of a 831-race season delivered Lui a maiden championship.

Season Finale

Francis Lui's Purton-Powered Charge To Championship

How did the season shape?

Ng had showed intent from before the first race of the season; he was prolific at the trials leading into the first fixture on September 3 and he was in pole position by November 5. His dominance soared from there.

Delivering 41 wins in his debut season, Ng had already surpassed that mark by December and led by as many as 15. Things started to steady after New Year while his former boss, Lui, was only just getting started. 

Lui closed in on Ng in April, and by late May, he drew level and an intense battle ensued.

Not only are Ng, 40, and Lui, 65, at opposite ends of their careers, but there is also somewhat of a contrast in styles. 

Ng seems a fascinating mix of old and new school philosophies. The son of wily former veteran Peter Ng, Pierre has a knack for squeezing multiple wins out of lower grade horses. Class 5 dwellers Medic Elite (two wins from a mammoth 20 starts, culminating in another honest run when fourth at the Season Finale) and Starship Eighty (three wins, all Class 5, within the space of 77 days), spring to mind.

Five-year-old I Give was a revelation after failing to impress the season prior. He commenced last term with a rating of 38 at the top of Class 5, but went on to win six races, reaching Class 2 with a mark of 80.

However, Ng also proved adept at nurturing imported talent. Australian import Galaxy Patch emerged as one of the most exciting horses in Hong Kong. After finishing second in the Hong Kong Derby (2000m), he went on to secure back-to-back wins in Group 3 Handicaps to cap off the season and clinch Champion Four-year-old and the end-of-season awards.

Irish import Taj Dragon built on his first season promise, winning four races including the G3 Chinese Club Challenge Cup (1400m) to rise 36 points, while five-year-old Australian import Mugen, also a four-time season winner, scaled 47 rating points.

While Lui made a massive leap when Golden Sixty put his name in the headlines, the veteran has made the most of his opportunities, showing a deft almost John Size-like hand when it comes to progression of PPGs.

Leading the charge are four-year-olds Copartner Prance (six wins), Chancheng Glory (six), and Holy Lake (five), who delivered the most wins for Lui.

Three-year-olds Call Me Glorious and King Miles each bagged three wins, while Packing Hermod lived up to his debut promise with a dominant three-length victory at the Season Finale. On the same day, the four-year-old International Sales Griffin (ISG) Patch Of Theta secured his fourth win of the season.

So, while Ng’s sudden emergence as a title contender in just his second season of training may have caught some off guard, the same can’t be said for Lui.

Lui has consistently posted strong numbers over the past four seasons, building towards a title tilt. Two seasons ago, he finished runner-up to champion John Size with a then career-best 67 wins, which he surpassed by three wins in his premiership-winning season.

Lui’s career-making horse Golden Sixty remains in training, but his future is undecided, while a maiden Group One win looks well within reach for both Ng and stable star Galaxy Patch.

Both trainers have a full stable of horses and, given their dominance last season, owners are likely to continue supporting them. Ng believes he has a stronger team for the upcoming season, while Lui’s lightly-raced brigade and those yet to race may keep him in title contention.  

A Size Slide?

By John Size’s standards, the 2023/24 season was modest. But maybe there’s no need to send out the search party just yet.

Size’s season felt like a glitch in the system. If he’s not winning the trainer’s premiership, which he has achieved a record 12 times, he is usually in contention, having been runner-up in the premiership five times and third three times.

However, in 2023/24, there wasn’t much of a fight and the Australian finished well outside the top three for just the third time in his 23-season Hong Kong career. In 2006/7, Size finished ninth on the ladder with 32 wins, and sixth in 2019/20 with 45 wins.

The 2022/23 champion trainer on 79 wins, Size fell to seventh position with 50 wins last term. His strike rate dropped from 12 percent to nine per cent, way down on his career mark of 13 per cent, and just the third time for it to drop below 10 per cent.     

Why the Size slide? One contributing factor to the decline in the stable’s win rate may be the performance of Privately Purchased Griffins (PPGs)—horses imported into Hong Kong unraced—that have historically been the backbone to his success.

In Size’s words, the process isn’t random; it is a concerted effort to bring in quality horses, and history shows he has consistently succeeded. However, most of the PPGs unveiled by the stable throughout the past season simply didn’t measure up, let alone win.

The stats back that up: the metric we have chosen to measure Size’s effectiveness with PPGs in any given season is an average of total wins per PPG individual starter. Not surprisingly, Size bats well above the overall average for all trainers, which for the last 20 seasons has sat at around 0.6 wins per PPG. During that same time span Size’s average is nearly double that at 1.1 wins per PPG starter.

That overall stat backs the eye test that Size is a master at the game, but the 2023/24 season stats also back that it has been his PPGs that have underperformed this season: Size’s average was down to 0.6326 wins per PPG starter, a smidgen below the ‘all other trainers’ average of 0.6327. The only other time in the last 20 seasons that Size was below average, 2006-07, corresponded with his worst ever total output of 32 wins. His best three seasons by average wins per PPG correspond with his three biggest seasons during the same period. 

Then there were the first-season Private Purchases (PP) – horses who previously raced overseas – who showed ability but are yet to win. Examples include Stellar Express and Magnificent Nine, who collectively started 15 times and managed two seconds and as many third-place finishes apiece.

Some of the stable’s four-year-olds didn’t come on from their three-year-old campaigns. Horses like Reward Smile and Simple Hedge didn’t win a race from a combined 21 starts, while after winning four races as a three-year-old, Howdeepisyourlove managed only one win for the 2023/24 season.

However, the outlook appears bright for Size as he boasts two exciting PPGs from this season on his roster, three-year-olds Wunderbar and The Winnabe. Size can also look forward to the return of Classic Mile and Classic Cup winner Helios Express.

There’s also the Irish PP, Young Champion, who impressively won his second and third Hong Kong starts in Class 3 and Class 2 in February and March, and appeared to have points in hand.

Is this a blip on the radar or a late-career decline? If time, as Size likes to say, is the governor of all things, then history suggests he will bounce back next term.

Beware the wounded champion: the three times Size suffered a steep win rate decline, he recovered sharply in the following season. After achieving 73 wins in the 2003/04 season, he managed only 50 in 2004/05 but soared to 77 in 2005/06. The following season saw his lowest haul ever, just 32 wins, before he bounced back with 68 wins in 2007/08. In 2018/19, Size’s 78 wins fell to 46 in 2019/20, before rising to 73 in 2020/21.

Purton Superb Despite Challenges

Zac Purton’s tremendous six-timer at the Season Finale was a fantastic way to cap off his seventh championship-winning season. It leaves us wanting more because, when everything falls into place for the champ, watching him is poetry in motion.

Reaching this mark again was no easy feat for Purton, as the path is never as straightforward as the results might suggest. Factors such as small fields and wet tracks in the early part of the season are just some of the challenges Purton has pointed out, while he recently spoke to Idol Horse about the rigours his body has endured to achieve his current status as champion, a topic he has candidly spoken about often.

In addition to being on the path to recovery from injury, he said it is only in the last few months that he has begun to feel comfortable. He has also discussed a decline in the quality of rides offered to him on a consistent basis.

Yet Purton still collected 130 wins in the 2023-24 campaign, including a second career Hong Kong Derby victory, a third Champions Mile, and a third Hong Kong Sprint. But as he expressed to Chief Journalist David Morgan, it’s the week-to-week quality of rides that he feels have waned. Let’s dig into why.

As mentioned, 12-time champion trainer John Size has had a moderate season by his standards, and if Size’s numbers drop, then so do Purton’s. It would be folly to think the opposite couldn’t also be true: if Purton underperforms because he isn’t physically 100 per cent, Size’s figures would likely decline as well.

This season, of Purton’s 680 rides, he rode most frequently for Size (100 rides). Of those, 16 won, striking at 16 per cent. An agonising 21 ran second, while 15 placed third.

Similar results were endured in combination with Jamie Richards, the trainer for whom Purton had his third-most number of rides. Purton was in the saddle for 62 of Richards’ 503 runners but they won 10 races at 16%.

However, a late-season discovery offers the Purton-Richards combination some hope for the future after three-year-old Courier Aladdin trounced his rivals on debut.

In contrast, compare this to Purton’s partnership with David Hayes: this season they secured 16 wins together from 60 rides at 27 per cent.

Curiously, champion trainer Francis Lui used Purton sparingly compared to others, but their partnership was formidable by strike rate. From the 38 times they joined forces, they won 18 races (a winning rate of 47 per cent), making Purton Lui’s most successful jockey for the season, ahead of homegrown hero Vincent Ho (16 wins at 14%).

Rookie Report Cards

This season’s rookie trainers Cody Mo and Mark Newnham made promising starts to their respective careers, but they did it in different ways.

Mo, 46, started in his own right after spending years in the system, dating back to being a work rider in 1994. Most notably, he spent nine years as assistant to legendary trainer Tony Cruz.

But rather than flying out of the gates as his former boss perennially does, Mo has taken the slow and steady path. That seemed evident before the season even got started: he didn’t have a trial starter until August 30.

Mo will end the term with the second fewest number of starters, but that appears to be by design. He was consistent however in the sense that the stable had at least one winner in each month of the season.

Mo did a good job with stable transfers, particularly with Happy Fat Cat, who arrived in his yard with three seasons of racing behind him with as many trainers, but became Mo’s most successful horse this term with four wins.

His patience was apparent as his new horses weren’t overly taxed, and Mo will be hoping that his careful approach is rewarded next season as he looks to ramp things up with more runners. 

The same can be said for Newnham. He started the season with around 28 horses, but that number has almost doubled by season’s end. 

One notable success story is that of the stable transfer, Happy Hero, who arrived at Newnham’s stable as a 10-start maiden and hadn’t finished better than eighth, but has since won three Class 5 races.

Newnham’s success wasn’t limited to stable transfers alone, however.

His adaptability to the Hong Kong style of training was evident as he achieved multiple wins from both unraced and pre-raced imports. Three-year-old PPG Full Credit, with three wins, and four-year-old PP Sing Dragon, also with three wins, spearheaded his success.

A late-season upswing saw Newnham secure eight winners from mid-June, concluding the season strongly with a total of 31 victories. With 20 horses in his stable yet to race, the 2024/25 season shapes up as another promising campaign.

The Ultimate Road Warrior

Trainer Danny Shum’s handling of superstar Romantic Warrior, along with owner Peter Lau’s willingness to travel, resulted in an extraordinary campaign.

While Romantic Warrior’s globetrotting conquests stand out, it was also pleasing to see other Hong Kong-trained horses head abroad to test their mettle.

Hong Kong’s Overseas Runners 2023-24

It has been a busy and successful season for Hong Kong runners abroad, but can we expect to see similar sojourns next season?

Surely Tony Cruz will get the itch to return to Dubai with California Spangle, along with a host of other Hong Kong-trained runners. But Danny Shum has made it clear that he would prefer to keep Romantic Warrior in Hong Kong.

Last week Romantic Warrior’s owner Peter Lau outlined the options to Idol Horse chief journalist David Morgan.

But should travel still be on the agenda, a return to Japan to defend his Yasuda Kinen trophy is looking most likely, due to transportation and quarantine being the easiest.

Pierre Ng could also be Japan-bound with talented sprinter Mugen.

After hinting to Australian press earlier in the year that the the G1 Manikato Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley in late October was a possible option for the former Australian galloper, Japan may get the tick of approval instead.

After Mugen was last seen defeating three-time Group 1 winner California Spangle in the G3 Premier Cup Handicap (1400m) at Sha Tin, Ng let drop the G1 Sprinters Stakes (1200m) at Nakayama Racecourse in September as a possible target.