Whyte Gives Respect As Purton Closes On His Record
Douglas Whyte’s epic Hong Kong win record is about to fall to Zac Purton and the all-time great is happy to celebrate the feat with his ‘worthy’ one-time rival.
AS ZAC PURTON marches towards one of world horse racing’s toughest records, only one man has a truly relatable inkling as to what it has taken to achieve, and that’s Douglas Whyte, the champion whose lofty tally of ‘most Hong Kong wins’ he is about to overtake.
The South African great, nowadays a trainer at Sha Tin, showed the depth of respect he has for Purton’s achievement with fine praise.
“If someone’s going to beat your record, you want it to be someone like Zac Purton,” Whyte told Idol Horse as he outlined the “globally-renowned jockey” status Purton has earned, as well as the unerring dedication to the cause, and range of traits and abilities it takes to put together such a huge win-total in Hong Kong.
“We never got on for a long time when we were riding against each other, but that’s due to nothing else but competitiveness and I respect that. Zac’s ridden winners for me as a trainer and we talk and we’ve had lunches together,” Whyte continued.
“He’s worked hard and I’d say his work ethic off the track has been much better than mine was. His riding at the moment is impeccable, he’s very good at staying out of the stewards’ room, and he’s very good at executing day in and day out, and that’s what makes a champion.”
Whyte was Purton’s original nemesis during the current champion’s rise to the top of Hong Kong’s premiership, and when the South African closed out his own incredible career on February 10, 2019 he left a storied legacy that included 13 consecutive Hong Kong titles and a mighty tally of 1,813 wins. That had him 894 wins ahead of Purton, who, after Whyte’s final race ride, knelt on one knee and motioned as if polishing the legend’s boots.
In the six years since, Purton has shaken off the rivalry of another sensational champion, Joao Moreira, to forge his own legacy that features seven premierships, another likely this term, and now Whyte’s overall win record is all but in his grasp. The Australian ace has eight to go, and the last 14 are being celebrated with the ‘ding-ding-ding’ of Purton ringing a bell placed beside the weighing room to mark the countdown to 1,814.
The showmanship and the social media grabs, orchestrated by the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s marketing arm, were not so much a part of the gig in Whyte’s day, but more importantly, the core elements of what it takes to be such a dominant champion remain the same.
“It’s total discipline, total focus, and a bit of selfishness as well, it’s as simple as that,” Whyte said. “There aren’t many other words to describe it, but underpinning all of that there’s a hungry desire: if you want it badly enough, you’ll do what it takes and put absolutely everything into getting it.
“Along the way, it’s a relentless grind and it requires total discipline with your body, with fitness, with health, and the list can go on. It’s a relentless struggle and as soon as you lose focus or lose that unwavering determination, it’s a downward spiral and it’s very difficult to come out of it.”
“It’s total discipline, total focus, and a bit of selfishness as well.”
Whyte arrived in Hong Kong on a short-term licence in the 1996-97 season and racked up winners rapidly; he left for home when that licence concluded, but returned that April to ride London News to victory in the QEII Cup. He was invited to stay until the season’s end and finished within reach of that year’s champion Basil Marcus.
“I knew then that if I could change a few things and do a few things differently, I could beat him. It became a challenge and a desire and an obsession,” he said.
“That was at a young age and you have to have the support behind you from everybody if you’re going to achieve what you set out to do. You’ve got to give up a lot, you’ve got to want it a lot, you’ve got to train a lot: Zac will know, and all the great champions around the world know what has to go into it, what the ingredients are that make the cake rise.”
Whyte was 26 when he made the move to Hong Kong. Purton was 24 when he arrived ahead of the 2007-08 season: he was full of talent, toughness, and confidence, but most certainly raw as to the ways of Hong Kong racing; a rough diamond requiring some polish.
“When the new young guns come in, as I did and as Zac did, you have to be smart, wise and intelligent enough to work it all out. Zac always had it, he just didn’t know how to use it and he didn’t know how to execute it,” Whyte said of Purton’s early years at Sha Tin when he struggled to gain support from the powerhouse stables.
“He was a work in progress, learning his trade, and he got better and better at it. He had age on his side and he got wiser and stronger, he learned the system, and now he’s very good at it, he’s known all around the world for what he’s been able to do here.”
“Zac always had it, he just didn’t know how to use it.”
Purton and Whyte have both talked about the ‘ruthless’ nature of Hong Kong racing and the peculiar challenges the circuit throws at jockeys. But both have relished that environment and thrived.
“You have to do your own rides and your own homework and bookings and all those sorts of things, and that’s good because you can’t point fingers at anybody,” Whyte said. “When you book a horse and you’ve got three horses to choose from, it’s your judgement and if you make the wrong call, you miss a winner and it could possibly cost you two or three winners down the line and you disappoint people along the way.
“You’re riding for three or four or five different trainers, and three or four horses are going for the same race and you have to make a decision, well you try to make the best decision. But that’s when the selfishness comes in because you make the decision that’s best for you, but what about the trainers? You’ve let them down along the way and then you also have to explain to them why. A lot of the trainers do understand and accept, but it’s not easy. If that horse that you’ve got off runs well, there’s a bitter taste in the mouth, so it’s not always doable,” Whyte continued.
“But when you get into a position like Zac is now, and like I was, it’s very doable because you’re making a difference every single race you go out there, and that’s the hardest thing to do in any jurisdiction, to make a difference every single race: you don’t look at the number board at what your price is, you make a difference.”
Whyte made a huge difference, not only in his professionalism, horsemanship, and judgement in a race, but also to the extent that he changed the way jockeys operated and how the entire system worked in terms of booking rides well in advance of declaration time.
And all of that comes back to the required focus, discipline and ‘selfishness’ that brought him the record in the first-place along with those 13 consecutive titles, the latter being a feat he doesn’t think will be matched.
“It’ll never ever get done again, and I say that only because I know what I went through and how disciplined and how selfish and how hardworking and determined I was that I didn’t want to let go of it,” he explained.
“As I’ve always said, everything has a shelf life and I had a long one. The record number of wins was always going to be taken away, that’s just the nature of the game, let alone Hong Kong, but I did enjoy it, I did enjoy the challenges, and I did put every inch of my soul and body on the line to keep it going for as long as I could.
“If somebody said push rewind and do it all over, I’d do it all over again. There are no regrets, no shame, I’d do it again because it kept me hungry, it kept me working, kept me at the top of my game, and to be at the top of your game in this jurisdiction … it’s a very fickle, hard, judgemental place.”
Whyte knows that the bell will ring one last time soon enough and then the record will no longer be his. But he is not lamenting that reality, rather he is happy to celebrate the achievement of a worthy champion just as he too was celebrated in his time.
“I don’t know if I’ll be the first to congratulate him, I hope I am, but I’ll be one of the first to go up and congratulate him because he deserves it,” Whyte said.
“You have to turn up every single day in a place like Hong Kong and that’s very difficult to do,” he added. “Zac’s not only coping with that, he’s doing it, so hats off to him, he’s doing a great job and I hope I can go and ring that bell with him.” ∎
