Strength In Adversity: Karis Teetan’s Championship Challenge
From childhood poverty in Mauritius, to his teenage years in the South African Jockey Academy, Karis Teetan is no stranger to overcoming adversity. Now he has his eyes on the ultimate prize: champion jockey of Hong Kong.
Strength In Adversity: Karis Teetan’s Championship Challenge
From childhood poverty in Mauritius, to his teenage years in the South African Jockey Academy, Karis Teetan is no stranger to overcoming adversity. Now he has his eyes on the ultimate prize: champion jockey of Hong Kong.
18 October, 2024ONE WAY to make sure Karis Teetan achieves something is to tell him he can’t do it.
Buried beneath Teetan’s ever-present smile and cheerful demeanor lies a burning desire to be the best, so when he asked during this interview, “Why can’t I win a championship in Hong Kong?” it felt more like a challenge, a dare, as if to say ‘tell me why I can’t … because I think I can.’
Teetan is in his 12th season in Hong Kong and coming off an 86-win season in 2023-24 – good enough for second-place behind Zac Purton in the Jockeys’ Championship – and through pure persistence has hauled his career win total into the upper echelons of the all-time greats.
At the time of writing, Teetan has 696 winners and has just passed Gary Moore (694 wins) on the all-time list and the five names ahead of him are a who’s who of Hong Kong racing: Douglas Whyte (1,813), Zac Purton (1,764 and counting), Joao Moreira (1,235), Tony Cruz (946) and Brett Prebble (804).
“I’m almost close to 700 winners and at the end of the day, that number talks,” Teetan says of his upcoming milestone. “I’m proud of myself to be able to reach a number like that. But there’s always something in Hong Kong that keeps you motivated and there’s a lot of things to aim for in the future.”
That is when Teetan asks that question: “Why can’t I win a championship in Hong Kong?
“Of course it’s a big goal,” he admits, “and I have to work harder and I need to get more support. But it’s obvious, as long as I’m here, I’m going to keep fighting and I’m gonna keep trying to find horses to win the big races.
“The money is big in Hong Kong, we all know that … especially in the big races; when you win, you get big rewards. But honestly, it’s not about the money for me. It’s about the feeling I get from winning those big races, it’s about the sacrifice I’ve put in since I was a young kid. It’s all about the sacrifice. When you win these big races, then you feel like all this hard work you’ve put in in the past has paid off.”
Hard work and adversity are things Teetan is familiar with. In a 2014 interview he described his upbringing in Mauritius: “There are two types of people in Mauritius, the poor people, and the very rich people – and we were definitely poor.”
What Teetan lacked in material goods was made up for in love and support from a wonderful family. Teetan showed an aptitude for riding as a youngster on the racing-mad island, skipping school to ride horses on the beach every day he could and then starting out as an apprentice with the Mauritius Jockey Club. Sensing his son’s talent, Teetan’s father Pravin, who worked in the cane fields, took out a loan to send his 13-year-old son to the South African Jockey Academy.
Teetan was overwhelmed: he could not speak English – only French and Creole – and arrived in Durban with 150 rand (around USD$25) in his pocket. He faced a tough regime of 4am starts at the academy and even tougher competition. Despite those challenges he rose through the highly competitive ranks to become South Africa’s champion apprentice within four years and rode nearly 500 winners before departing for Hong Kong.
Even on arrival at Sha Tin for the start of the 2013-14 season, the 23-year-old was considered an underdog. The two jockeys that were licenced at the same time as Teetan – Colm O’Donoghue and Nicola Pinna – were far more experienced. Teetan’s first Hong Kong ride was a winner, the first race of the season, no less, and his star steadily rose. O’Donoghue and Pinna were gone by the winter. Still, there have been some setbacks for Teetan.
He missed three months at the start of the 2022-23 season due to a serious thyroid condition that doctors struggled to pinpoint at first. The stint on the sideline contributed to him losing the ride on Romantic Warrior, who had won the G1 Hong Kong Derby and G1 QEII Cup in 2022.
The health scare rocked Teetan, who spends at least two hours per day working on his fitness.
“I think leaving home when I was so young, I was 13, that already toughened me up and I’ve never been someone that’s scared of obstacles. I’m always willing to do whatever it takes and I’m never giving up,” he says. “But I must say, when I was sick, that really got to me. That really hit me when I found out that this sickness was maybe never going to go away and was always going to be part of my life.”
Teetan was still able to ride 56 winners in 2022-23 and, typical of his ‘glass half full’ attitude, sees his setback as a character building blessing now that he has fully recovered.
“You can ask ‘why me?’ but I look at life differently now,” he says. “I don’t take anything for granted. I appreciate every moment that happens with my family and on a race track. I think getting sick was a blessing in disguise. It taught me a lot. It taught me about life.
“Now if I have a good day of racing or I have something nice happen, not just in racing, I really feel it and enjoy it. Time goes by really quickly here in Hong Kong and I appreciate things more now. It’s about not wasting those good moments because you never know what will happen tomorrow.”
Teetan’s physical preparation remains intense. His wire-thin frame and furnace-like metabolism are a blessing in that he can ride the minimum weight of 115lb in Hong Kong, but he strives to remain as strong as possible when competing at those bottom weights.
The Jockey Club has stepped up its professionalism when it comes to care but jockeys also go outside the club sources in search of personal trainers, specialised physical therapy and other support.
When Teetan arrived in Hong Kong the jockey roster was heavy with veteran talent like Whyte, Prebble, Gerald Mosse and Olivier Doleuze, but now the roster has a more youthful look and it shows in the physical fitness routines of the riders.
“They are energetic, they want to work out and they are willing to put in a lot of work,” Teetan says of the new generation of riders. “But in general, I think Hong Kong racing has become stronger in the last couple of years. The guys now are realising that you’ve got to put in the work behind the scenes to be able to achieve the success you want here in Hong Kong. You can’t just be thinking that you can come here, sit on the bench and hope you’ll get a good ride. It doesn’t work like that. You have always got to be on top of your game.”
“You can’t just be thinking that you can come here, sit on the bench and hope you’ll get a good ride.”
It isn’t just Teetan’s own physical health that he has focussed on. In the aftermath of the strict Covid protocols placed around Hong Kong racing’s participants, jockeys were given access to a host of support measures, including a sports psychologist who introduced meditation to the riders.
“It has helped me a lot,” said Teetan, who has observed a changing of attitudes around seeking psychological help. “Everybody needs help at some time. I don’t know why people are afraid of talking about it … we should not be scared of it, we should just be able to talk to someone and let someone help us. I think it’s a great thing to have and I think with the club providing this kind of help to us jockeys, it’s a great thing. It’s beautiful.”
Adding to the jockey’s support network is his young family. Wife Xaviere Cottereau and two-year-old daughter Isabelle, plus Teetan’s brother Mervin, a trackwork rider at Sha Tin, and has his own young family with two children.
“Now with Isabelle growing up, she’s two and turning three next year, it’s nice to start a family here,” Teetan says. “Hong Kong is our home. We feel really good here. The club is of course very good. And it’s a great place. The little one, she brings so much joy to my life and Xaviere’s life. And also I have my brother Mervin here, and he’s got his daughter and now he’s got a little newborn boy. So in the future, Isabelle will be able to spend time with her cousins and in Hong Kong. It’s really nice to have family around me.”
Teetan sees a bright future in Hong Kong but also on the horizon are more visits to Japan, where his second-placing in the Hong Kong Jockeys’ Championship qualifies him for a short term licence.
“I love Japan and the racing there and I would love to spend more time there in the future,” he says. “I am qualified to head over and although our season in Hong Kong does not leave many opportunities, spending more time in Japan is something I want to do. I love the country, I love its racing and I especially love the reception I get from the Japanese people and racing fans.”
When it comes to that ultimate goal of being Hong Kong champion, Teetan still has time on his side – at just 34 he may even make a run at the all-time win total – but his biggest advantage is that like Purton or Whyte, he sees Hong Kong as home, not a stepping stone to somewhere else.
“I think Hong Kong racing has a bigger and brighter future,” he says. “We are looking forward to racing in China, which will be interesting. It’s a new era, since I’ve been in Hong Kong, I’ve seen Conghua growing. The club is putting a lot of investment into making racing bigger and better.” ∎