Ryan Moore was done for the day. Left behind in Ascot’s jockeys room were the green and white silks he had worn all afternoon for two wins, earning the Silver Saddle as the Shergar Cup’s leading rider, and the overall title for Team Great Britain and Ireland.
Now he had on a blue suit – bag on his shoulder, water bottle under his arm, a cup of summer fruits in hand – ascending the steps of the Ascot parade ring towards the racecourse’s wrought iron gates; ahead of him the High Street, his car parked beyond and then away to his family.
“The last time I rode at the Shergar Cup I left here to go to my dad’s 50th birthday, now he’s 70,” Moore told Idol Horse.
Trainer Gary Moore became a septuagenarian on Friday, the day before this year’s Shergar Cup. When he turned 50, on this Saturday back in 2006, his most famous son was 22, an exciting prodigy just a couple of weeks away from winning his first Group 1, the Juddmonte International at York on Notnowcato.
Plenty has happened since then. Moore is 42 now, known far and wide as one of the greatest jockeys of all time, with a collection of global big-race wins too long to list here.
Winning the Shergar Cup pales alongside his greatest achievements, but, for all his two-decade absence from the event, he recognises just how important it can be for a young jockey on the up: how his own development as a young rider was helped by participating in jockey challenges on the other side of the world.
“When I was a kid, it was nice when I was riding in Hong Kong and Japan in those jockey challenges, riding with those different jockeys from around the world, that was a great experience for me when I was a kid,” he said.
That’s the kind of thing the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) is banking on – in part at least. This year’s Shergar Cup was the competition’s 25th anniversary but it also felt like the dawning of a new era. This was the first time the HKJC had linked the event to its World Pool offering, with its mega commingled pool; and it was the first time Hong Kong had its own team.
As far as the Club was concerned, Team Hong Kong was all about talented young jockeys advancing their race-riding development on a big stage in a new environment away from week-in-week-out Sha Tin and Happy Valley, against some of the world’s best. Jerry Chau and Luke Ferraris were marshalled by their experienced, more senior captain Vincent Ho, outside of their comfort zone, up against rivals that included Moore and fellow legends Yutaka Take and Christophe Lemaire.
Hong Kong has the International Jockeys Championship (IJC) at Happy Valley in December, of course, but just as a young Moore benefitted from going to that alien arena to develop, so too can Chau and Ferraris reap the learning from their first experience riding at Ascot.
“It’s a key part of our talent development,” HKJC’s Head of Racing Product Greg Carpenter told Idol Horse before racing began. “It’s about World Pool, our partnership with Ascot Racecourse, but it’s also very much about giving us a stage to showcase the development of our local talent and also to assist them in becoming better riders.”
It all started perfectly for Hong Kong. Jerry Chau rifled Tuco Salamanca to a win in the opener, the five-furlong Dash, with Ho second. Then in the second race, Ferraris produced his mount Dancing In Paris with a beautifully timed run to win the Stayers over two miles.
“It’s critical, the things these young jockeys will learn from riding at a racecourse like Ascot,” Ferraris’ father, former Hong Kong trainer David Ferraris, told Idol Horse after the Stayers win.
“I mean, Hong Kong’s its own schooling ground, and what they learn there is the most important thing, and that is the pace. It’s the pace judgment. It’s the counting of the sections and that is what wins races. That’s what Hong Kong teaches these kids, that judgment of pace. It’s vitally important.”
His son’s judgement was impeccable over a distance far beyond anything he experiences in Hong Kong where its longest races – only three of them – are at a mile and a half. Ferraris said it had been about “seven years” since he rode a race as long. The win got him the award for ‘Ride of the Day.’
“Today was a beautiful example of sitting behind the leaders, getting sucked into the race at the right time,” Ferraris senior said. “Luke didn’t move on him too early, because if you move on them too early, they’re gone. Sit as long as you can. Beautiful.
“We drummed it into him. Don’t move too early. And Jerry Chau as well, I mean this will be massive for him. That kid has improved out of proportion.”
Chau was very much the Hong Kong poster boy for this day, the homegrown kid stepping onto the European stage off a strong domestic campaign. Like Ferraris, he described winning his first ride at Ascot as being “a dream” outcome.
“It’s a lovely feeling, riding in this track, going up hills and down hills again. It’s really an experience different than Hong Kong and that’s important to have this experience,” Chau said.
World Pool up to this point had been hooked around the World’s Top 100 Races as ranked by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA), so expanding to incorporate the Shergar Cup was a move into new ground.
“We are offering a wider suite of events, while still being very much focused on the top 100 races in the world,” Carpenter said.
“But there’s opportunities to expand that. Ascot were our original partners in World Pool, this year is significant as the 25th running of the Shergar Cup, and we have been able to get an extension (from the Hong Kong government) to the number of races and race days that we are able to offer through World Pool.
“With the Shergar Cup, we’re hoping today will show there’s also an opportunity with a valued partner to create more interest beyond the top 100.”
World Pool offered an extra day at Goodwood recently and will also offer an extra day at the upcoming York Ebor Festival.
“We are looking and we have the ability to expand the number of races and race days that we offer,” Carpenter continued, “particularly this time of the year, as everyone knows, when we’re not racing back home.”
From the Ascot side, the involvement of World Pool brings in lucrative added revenue, while the inclusion of Team Hong Kong added a new dimension, which Ascot’s Director of Racing and Public Affairs Nick Smith said was in keeping with how they approach the event.
“It’s an event that needs to change all the time to keep fresh,” he said. “Changing the team dynamics helps keep it fresh. We used to have a women-only team but that sort of had its day because the job of promoting women riders was sort of done, and now funnily enough without a women’s team we have more women riding today than normally.”
Two of the women won: Norwegian Frida Valle Skar and the Britain and Ireland Team captain Saffie Osborne.
Meanwhile, Carpenter said the notion that World Pool and HKJC’s involvement might lead to a linking of the world’s top jockeys’ challenges such as in Saudi Arabia in February, the World All-Star Jockeys in Japan at the end of August and HKJC’s own IJC in December was “an interesting concept.”
“If you had something that was linked riding events, that might be an opportunity to drive fan engagement, which is what the sport should be doing,” he said.
But Smith viewed such a linking up of jockeys’ challenges as “Very unlikely” given that the top jockeys have retainers and riding commitments.
“I mean, the chance of getting Ryan Moore to ride in six jockeys’ competitions is almost impossible,” Smith said. “This has been mooted before, but it was impossible to take it forward because these top jockeys are committed to their rides at home all the time.”
Moore’s participation this time after so long was only possible because the Curragh in Ireland, a track whose executive works closely with those at Ascot, York, Goodwood and Leopardstown as key World Pool partners, moved its Group 1 Phoenix Stakes fixture to Sunday.
Carpenter said there had been “no conversation” with the Curragh about that fixture shift.
A fortuitous coincidence. But one that meant the 21,000 or so in attendance got to watch the master in action, and Hong Kong’s young riders got to take on the masterful Moore on his home ground.
It “massively” lived up to Luke Ferraris’ high expectations, the rider calling his win “the cherry on top” of a memorable day.
“Every new experience is good for a young rider coming through and getting this sort of experience at Ascot is fantastic,” he added.
Hong Kong might have only taken second in the competition, but really, it was a win all-round for the Club and its promotion of its bright young talents. ∎
