Pierre Ng knows what it’s like to win big in Japan, he experienced it as Paul O’Sullivan’s assistant trainer in the team that took Aerovelocity to Chukyo for an epic victory in the March 2015 G1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen. Now he is the boss of his own stable and on Sunday his name will be alongside Mugen in the race book for the G1 Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama.
The track’s stiff incline to the winning post will be as new to Mugen as is the overall environment, but Ng has faith in the Group 3 winner and in Hong Kong’s sprinting tradition, which has seen the great Silent Witness and Ultra Fantasy carry the Sprinters Stakes trophy back to Sha Tin.
“We’re pretty strong with our sprinters, we’re known for sprinting,” Ng told Idol Horse. “I wouldn’t say Japanese horses are not good sprinters, it will be difficult going there, but Hong Kong horses (are proven) going overseas and winning sprint races. The pace that our horses have and the style that we race, it’s quite an advantage in some ways, so hopefully he can manage to do it in Japan.
“I think with his stamina, winning a 1400-metre race last time, now going back to 1200 metres with that little bit of a stiff finish in the straight, running fresh enough, I think he’ll manage that track.”
Just two years after saddling his first runner, Ng, 41, has taken no time at all to find his travelling groove, but that’s no surprise. He might have grown up in Hong Kong, the son of prominent trainer Peter Ng, but Australia was where he took his first professional steps in the industry, and he has gained experience in the United States, Japan, Ireland and New Zealand as well.
“This is just the (start of my) third season and we’ve already produced international runners,” he said. “We didn’t have good enough horses the first season, so hopefully we’ll get more competitive and be winning races overseas as well. With a good horse you can plan to travel.”
He fired his first offshore shots six months into his tenure, sending Glorious Dragon and Duke Wai on tough Group 1 assignments to Dubai. A year ago, he shipped Duke Wai and Apache Pass to Seoul for fourth place and seventh in the G3 Korea Sprint and G3 Korea Cup, respectively.
Mugen is closer to what Ng envisages a genuine overseas contender should look like; perhaps the first under his name good enough to promote his stable to a global audience.
“That’s one of the goals,” he said.
After all, his is an international outlook befitting the times. With the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s World Pool expanding its reach in an ever-shrinking world and mega purses on offer not only in Dubai, but also in Saudi Arabia, Australia, the United States, and Japan, as well as the big money available at home in Hong Kong, he understands the importance of competing offshore, with the right candidates.
“I think it’s very important for our whole industry across the world,” he said. “And, for us, we can show that Hong Kong runners can run all over the world and perform; showing the world that we have good horses and can train good horses. To compete at that international level, it’s a recommendation for Hong Kong racing and the quality we have with our horses and our horsemen.”
Those days with O’Sullivan, travelling Aerovelocity to Japan and to Singapore for two major overseas wins inside two months, have certainly stuck with Ng: the feeling those victories brought, the lessons that he learned, and the vista of ambition they opened to his view.
“Of course, the techniques you find that worked with the trainers you worked for before, how you manage things from the time they arrive in a place, and knowing what to do in their work up towards the race, that has always been in my mind. I find all this interesting.”
Ng’s career path saw him leave the University of New South Wales after studying Safety Science and Japanese Studies, with some part-time experience under his belt at nearby Randwick working for David Payne. Upon graduation, he moved on to David Hayes for a short spell and then his hometown Jockey Club came along and accepted his application to be a work rider.
After moving back to Hong Kong and entering the HKJC training system, he had spells with trainers Chris Waller and Mick Price in Australia, with Bill Mott in the United States and Takayuki Yasuda in Japan. Then he had the opportunity to be assistant trainer to his father at Sha Tin and helped him to his best-ever numerical tally in his last season before retirement.
“To be honest, it wasn’t until I graduated that I ever thought I’d be working in the industry,” he said. “As a child, obviously, you might have a dream that one day you’ll ride a horse on the track, but it wasn’t until I graduated and needed to find a job that I thought about it too seriously, then somehow I got this riding job for the club.”
When his father retired, he moved on to O’Sullivan, then the great John Size, and then Francis Lui, assisting each through highly successful seasons. Factor in his association with the widely-popular Aerovelocity, and his promotion to trainer was keenly anticipated on the Hong Kong circuit.
Ng has not disappointed. He ended his second season, in July, second in the premiership with 69 wins, having pushed his old boss Lui right to the wire, losing out by only one win. He is making no predictions about the campaign ahead.
“I think we just take it year by year,” he said. “The first season we had 41 winners and we tried to improve from there. In the second season we did improve, but still there’s lots of improvement within the stables, with horses and with the staff, and we’ll just try to find a perfect way to do things, how to handle it perfectly and achieve more.
“I’m just really looking forward to this season with the quality of horses that we have, see how many points we can get them up in the ratings and compete in the Group levels, it’s very exciting.”
Much of that excitement is reserved for last season’s Hong Kong Derby runner-up Galaxy Patch and the untapped Johannes Brahms.
“I’m very happy that I can train this horse, he’s from a very good stable and I’m very happy that we could purchase him,” he said of the latter, a three-year-old that came from Aidan O’Brien’s stable after a juvenile season that included second-place in the G2 Gimcrack Stakes.
“He had his first trial this morning at Conghua, which he did brilliantly, professionally, and it seems like he’s just a special one.”
Galaxy Patch, Ng’s likely G1 Hong Kong Mile contender come December, is already pretty special: the gelding was also second in the G1 Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup last term and wrapped up the campaign with a pair of Group 3 wins. That might peg him as a potential offshore raider, but Ng is not so sure.
“He’s not a horse that is ideal to travel yet, by his character,” the trainer revealed. “He’s not ready to settle, in just the short period of time you have when you go away. Maybe, after this season, or perhaps midway through the season, after he’s had more racing, his mind might be a little more professional and more mature and then I think one day, if I’m happy with him and he’s shown he’s matured, we might try that.”
Meanwhile, at Nakayama, Ng has placed Mugen in the care of his Conghua-based assistant trainer Ray Leung, a horseman he “fully trusts” just as O’Sullivan did when he was in the same position with Aerovelocity almost a decade ago.
He will arrive in Tokyo later this week and he is looking forward to seeing what Mugen can do, in a country that holds meaning to him through his university studies and that famous day at Chukyo.
“The passion of Japan’s racing fans is phenomenal, but also there’s the professionalism in Japan, and how they race, it’s a good experience,” Ng said. “But when you study the language – I speak just a little bit of Japanese, not much – the country, you know the culture, and you have good memories and good experiences there, it is special.
“We had a great result with Aerovelocity and I’ve always been hoping one day I could bring a horse to Japan and achieve the same,” he added. “That’s my goal.”
