When Teresa Poon departed Hong Kong for Australia in 1991, she could scarcely have believed that she would return more than three decades later with a runner in one of the city’s biggest races.
That is a common link for Poon and her partners in the Australian Chinese Jockey Club who are among the global ownership group of G1 Champions Mile runner Royal Patronage.
“Nearly all of the owners in our group are Hong Kong Chinese, so to have a runner in Hong Kong is very special for us,” Poon told Idol Horse from a table overlooking the city’s famous Victoria Harbour. “Most of us left Hong Kong moderately successful, but we have made our careers and our lives in Australia and Australia is our home.
“The members of the Australian Chinese Jockey Club, we are accountants, insurance brokers, business people. Our heritage is a common link but we have found another common link through our love of the horse and our love of racing.”
Poon was a Hong Kong Jockey Club member before she moved to Australia and admits that she primarily knew about racing from a betting angle. When she met her eventual partner, property developer David Kobritz, they bonded over a passion for racing – a conversation sparked by a picture in his office of Kobritz-owned Subzero, who won the Melbourne Cup the year after Poon’s arrival in Australia.
Together for almost two decades, Poon and Kobritz own boutique Victorian breeding operation Musk Creek Farm. It was this knowledge and experience in the racing and breeding industries that inspired her to launch the Australian Chinese Jockey Club in late 2014 alongside Derek Lo.
The Club was started not as a horse ownership vehicle but as an opportunity to bring together members of the Asian communities in Sydney and Melbourne – a key demographic often overlooked by Australia’s racing administrators.
Australia’s most recent census in 2021 revealed that almost six per cent of the country’s population, currently estimated at 27.6 million, has Chinese heritage – putting the figure at around 1.6 million Australians. Almost three per cent of Australian residents were born in China, Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan, while almost 12 per cent were born in Asia as a whole.
“Nothing was being done to reach out to Asian communities in Australia,” Poon said. “It is not easy coming into the racing industry, whether it is going to the races or the sales, and it can be quite confusing. We wanted to provide an opportunity to bring people into the racing industry, because there were a lot of people who were willing to invest if they knew or understood the sport. The problem was, there wasn’t an entry point for them.”
One of the earliest supporters of the concept was Gai Waterhouse, who now trains the majority of the Australian Chinese Jockey Club’s horses in partnership with Adrian Bott.
“We saw Gai at the sales and she was so welcoming to all of these new faces, which is not always the experience for many people when they come to their first sale,” Poon said. “I already had a link with Gai because she bought Pierro from us (Musk Creek Farm) and so she took all of these new people for breakfast at the Arrowfield marquee and it really created a good impression, they all wanted to race a horse with her.
“She then allowed our members to come with her to the farms and she allowed us use of her box at Flemington during the winter, so she was someone who understood the concept very early on and has allowed us to develop into what we are today.”
Each year, 20 members of the Australian Chinese Jockey Club invest A$15,000, giving their Club A$300,000 annually to invest in horses. Their strategy so far, led by president Douglas You, has been to buy small shares in numerous horses, particularly imported stayers.
“Our current club has shares in a number of horses at the moment, including The Metropolitan winner Just Fine and recent Chairman’s Handicap winner Alalcance,” she said. “In the past, we’ve been involved in Knights Order, who won a Sydney Cup and a Brisbane Cup, as well as stayers like White Marlin and Sir Lucan as well.
“Our members have raced other horses too, including horses like Military Mission and Rise At Dawn. And so already the ACJC has brought new owners into the industry and they are continuing to invest.”
The Australian Chinese Jockey Club’s Hong Kong link dates back to their first horse eight years ago, which contained a reference to one of Hong Kong’s greatest horses of the 1980s.
“Our first horse was named Aeecee Tong De,” she said. “At the time, all of our horses had Aeecee at the front to represent A and C, the Australia and China link. ‘Tong De’ in Mandarin has the same characters as the Cantonese ‘Tung Dak’, which was the name of a famous Hong Kong horse, Co-Tack. So since the beginning, our links have been there with Hong Kong racing and it is very special for us to be here for Saturday.”
In a city where luck is a form factor as important as barrier draws or ability, the Australian Chinese Jockey Club syndicates are renowned within the Waterhouse-Bott yard for bringing luck.
“They’ve been a very lucky group of owners for us,” Bott told Idol Horse. “It is a great initiative by Teresa and it’s a terrific story for them, just as it is for all of the owners. Most importantly, the horse has the right profile for Hong Kong and so it is terrific for us to be a part of that journey in bringing many of their owners back to their roots. It’s incredibly special.”
Part-owner Ray Montague, a long-time friend of Poon, drew gate three for Royal Patronage on Thursday morning. The countdown is now on until Sunday – a day that, for Poon and her owners, has been decades in the making.
“We have had runners in the Melbourne Cup and raced in so many big races but this is as important as that for us,” Poon said. “In Royal Patronage, we’ve got a horse that has already won a Group 1, that has raced so well over the last year and that is already made as a stallion. If he can win overseas, especially in a place that is so special to us, it really justifies everything we have done with the Australian Chinese Jockey Club.” ∎
