Hong Kong Jockey Club Apprentice Jockeys’ School graduate Vincent Ho racked up 44 wins as a young rider in New Zealand under the tutelage of leading trainer Lance O’Sullivan. He made a solid start to his Hong Kong career with 10 victories in his first season in 2009/10, including a trio of wins he achieved on only his fourth race day in Hong Kong. He sealed the 2010/11 Champion Apprentice title with 39 wins. Ho reached the graduation benchmark on 1 October, 2012 by claiming his 70th win in Hong Kong aboard Castle Hero, and he notched 33 wins in 2014/15 to be the season’s leading homegrown rider. By number of wins, Ho enjoyed his best season to date in 2022/23, when he amassed a career-high 96 wins. In that season he also became the second homegrown jockey in history to ride 500 winners in Hong Kong, and took a fourth Tony Cruz Award. However, 2020/21 could easily be regarded as his best season, when he won five Group 1 races, including victories aboard Hong Kong’s champion Golden Sixty and Japan’s Loves Only You. Ho added a trio of Group 1 wins to his haul with Golden Sixty during the 2022/23 season. He had an interrupted 2023/24 season due to injuries but made history as the first homegrown jockey to claim the International Jockeys’ Championship only four days before winning a third Hong Kong Mile aboard Golden Sixty. Ho rode a short stint in Europe during the off-season in 2018 and notched a first win in Great Britain at the first attempt, partnering the Mark Johnston-trained X Rated to success at Haydock on 9 August. He returned to Great Britain during the 2019 off-season and competed at the Shergar Cup at Ascot, where he won the Shergar Cup Mile aboard Power Of Darkness, helping the Rest of the World team secure Shergar Cup glory. His latest British stint in 2024 yielded one win atop Love De Vega for trainer Charlie Johnston. He reached his 600th Hong Kong win milestone in November 2024. Not long after, he added another Group race win to his tally with Galaxy Patch in the G2 Sha Tin Trophy. He was sidelined from February 2025 due to injury.

• Hong Kong Champion Apprentice (2010/11)
• Best Freelance Jockey Award (2014/15)
• Tony Cruz Award (2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21 & 2022/23)
• International Jockeys’ Championship winner (2023)

• 2024- 5th
• 2023 – WON
• 2022 – 3rd (DH)
• 2021 – 10th (DH)
• 2020 – 8th (DH)
• 2019 – 3rd
• 2018 – 3rd
• 2014 – 5th

Zac Purton ended Douglas Whyte’s 13-season dominance by winning his first Hong Kong Jockeys’ Championship in 2013/14 with 112 wins, and in claiming his second title in 2017/18, he halted Joao Moreira’s title streak at three. During his first championship season, the Australian ace raced to what was then the fastest 50 wins in Hong Kong history and became the second rider, after Whyte, to reach 100 wins in a season. Purton lost his title when he finished second to Moreira in 2014/15 with 95 wins, a position he filled for the next two seasons, including when recording his second century of wins in 2016/17. His second championship was a remarkable effort as he chased down Moreira to take the lead for the first time that season on 10 June, 2018. Five weeks later, at the season’s conclusion, he had outpointed Moreira 136-134. The Australian ace won a third consecutive championship in 2019/20, with 147 wins and three Group 1 victories. His triumph aboard Exultant in the 2020 QEII Cup made him the only rider in history to have won every Group 1 race on the Hong Kong calendar. Purton’s championship-winning streak was stopped at three in 2020/21, but he reclaimed the title in 2021/22. He claimed his fifth title after another enthralling battle with Moreira, enjoying 136 wins, including his third Stewards’ Cup triumph aboard the John Size-trained Waikuku. He also sealed a third International Jockeys’ Championship title. Now an eight-time Hong Kong Champion Jockey, Purton broke Whyte’s all-time Hong Kong wins record, which stood at 1,813. Purton began his career in Brisbane and was an apprentice sensation, winning the championship there in 2003. He also boasts a famous Royal Ascot victory for Hong Kong, riding Little Bridge to success in the 2012 King’s Stand Stakes. He was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2025, while his recent highlights include winning five Group 1 races with world’s best sprinter Ka Ying Rising. He reached the 1,900-Hong Kong win milestone in October, 2025.

• Hong Kong Champion Jockey (2013/14, 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24 & 2024/25)
• Brisbane Champion Jockey (2003 – when still an apprentice)
• International Jockeys’ Championship winner (2017, 2020 & 2021)
• World Super Jockeys Series (Japan) winner (2012)
• Hong Kong single season prize money record (HK$277,712,060 in 2022/23)
• Hong Kong record for most wins in a season (179 in 2022/23)
• Australian Racing Hall of Fame inductee (2025)

• 2024 – 8th
• 2023 – 2nd
• 2022 – 12th
• 2021 – WON
• 2020 - WON
• 2019 - 9th
• 2018 - 10th (DH)
• 2017 - WON
• 2016 - 7th
• 2014 - 6th
• 2013 - 2nd
• 2012 - 2nd

Born in Waterperry, near Oxford, Rachel King’s father was an amateur jockey and trainer. She aspired to become a jockey from a young age and gained school holiday experience at Mick Channon’s stable. After graduating from school, she rode as an amateur rider for Alan King. In 2014, she moved to Australia and after working at Bart and James Cummings for two months, she became apprentice for Gai Waterhouse and won her first race in 2015. In her first season she notched a total of 17 wins in New South Wales in 2014/15, and at end of her 2016/17 campaign she claimed the Sydney Champion Apprentice title with 88 wins. Now a six-time Group 1-winning rider, King scored her first Group race win in 2017/18, when she partnered Lanciato to victory in the G3 Newcastle Newmarket Handicap. She then made a Group 1 breakthrough in the Spring Champion Stakes atop Maid Of Heaven for now Hong Kong-based trainer Mark Newnham. She won her second Group 1 aboard Knights Order in the 2022 Sydney Cup. In 2023 she finished runner-up in Japan’s World All-Star Jockeys. She has won more than 720 races worldwide, while in 2025 she became the first female jockey to win a Flat Group 1 race in Japan, landing the February Stakes with Costa Nova.

• Sydney Champion Apprentice (2016/17)

• 2024 – 9th
• 2023 – 3rd

Ryan Moore is a two-time winner of the International Jockeys’ Championship. He is the outstanding international rider of recent years and was the first recipient of the World’s Best Jockey Award as a result of 15 Group 1 wins in 2014. He won that accolade again in 2016, 2021 and 2023. Moore hails from a racing family. His first win came for his trainer father, Gary Moore, on Mersey Beat over hurdles at Towcester in 2000. His first professional Flat win came on Marwell’s Kiss at Lingfield in 2002. He notched a first Group 1 aboard Notnowcato in the 2006 Juddmonte International Stakes at York. Moore has won most of the world’s foremost races, including all four features at the Hong Kong International Races, Hong Kong Derby in 2018 with Ping Hai Star, as well as the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Melbourne Cup, Japan Cup, W.S. Cox Plate, Golden Slipper, Irish Champion Stakes, Dubai Turf, English Derby, Irish Derby, French Derby, English Oaks and 16 Breeders’ Cup races, led by seven wins in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and five in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. The number one retained rider for Aidan O’Brien’s all-powerful Ballydoyle operation, Moore enjoyed a rewarding 2025 before injury struck, teaming with crack filly Minnie Hauk to win the Oaks Stakes, Yorkshire Oaks, Irish Oaks and Cheshire Oaks.

• British Champion Jockey (2006, 2008 & 2009)
• British Champion Apprentice (2003)
• International Jockeys’ Championship winner (2009 [shared] & 2010)
• World’s Best Jockey Award winner (2014, 2016, 2021 & 2023)

• 2024 – 11th (DH)
• 2023 – 5th
• 2022 – 9th (DH)
• 2021 – 6th
• 2020 – 6th
• 2019 - 2nd
• 2018 - 5th
• 2017 - 6th
• 2016 - 2nd
• 2015 - 2nd
• 2014 - 4th
• 2013 - 5th
• 2012 - 3rd
• 2011 - 6th (DH)
• 2010 - WON
• 2009 - WON (DH)
• 2007 - 10th (DH)
• 2006 - 6th

Hollie Doyle made a winning debut as a jockey, scoring at Salisbury in 2013 aboard The Mongoose. After completing high school, she joined the yard of David Evans in Wales, and during winter, would spend six weeks riding out at Santa Anita, California. In 2014, Doyle began her apprenticeship at the Wiltshire yard of four-time British champion trainer, Richard Hannon Snr, and she rode out her claim in 2017. Doyle rode her 152nd winner of the year on 22 October, 2021, surpassing her own record for a British female jockey of wins through a calendar year after her 151 wins in 2020. She made a single-day record for a female jockey with five wins at Windsor Racecourse on 29 August, 2020. Doyle also secured her first Group race victory in the G2 Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket aboard Dame Malliot, and her first Royal Ascot success came with 33/1 chance Scarlet Dragon in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes in 2020. Her biggest success to date also came at Ascot in the 2020 British Champions Sprint Stakes atop Glen Shiel, who gave her a British Champions Day double after Trueshan had powered clear of his rivals in the G2 British Champions Long Distance Cup. Later that year she participated in the International Jockeys’ Championship for the first time, becoming the first female jockey to win leg of the contest, helping her to finish joint third with Alexis Badel in the event. She won a second International Jockeys’ Championship race in 2021 on her way to finishing joint-second in that year’s event. She won atop Trueshan in the 2021 Goodwood Cup and formed a strong alliance with Nashwa – winning a further two Group 1s aboard in 2022. The same partnership won the 2023 Falmouth Stakes. Hollie married Tom Marquand in 2022. In 2024, she won the Flying Five Stakes and Nunthorpe Stakes atop Bradsell. She rode her 1,000 winner in 2024 and rode her 1,000th British winner in 2025.

• First female jockey to ride five winners in one day (Windsor Racecourse, 29 August, 2020)
• Single season record for most winners ridden by a female jockey (172 in 2021)

• 2024 – 2nd (DH)
• 2023 - 10th (DH)
• 2022 – 11th
• 2021 – 2nd (DH)
• 2020 – 3rd (DH)

William Buick was born in Oslo, Norway. His Scottish-born father Martin was an eight-time Scandinavian Champion Jockey. After moving to England, Buick rode his first winner on Bank On Benny at Salisbury in 2006. He finished his first season with 10 winners and in 2008, Buick tied for the British Flat Racing Champion Apprentice title with David Probert. From 2010-14, he was stable jockey for John Gosden and in 2015 Buick joined the Godolphin operation – with whom he still rides for as their number one choice. His rode his first Group 1 winner – Lahaleeb – in Canada in 2009 and has since boosted his Group 1 tally of wins to well over 100 with success around the world in England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. His 2025 highlights included winning the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes and the International Stakes aboard Ombudsman. His latest Group 1 success came in the Breeders’ Cup Mile with Notable Speech. His elite level wins in Hong Kong have come in the 2018 QEII Cup with Pakistan Star and the Champions & Chater Cup on Rebel’s Romance in 2024. Buick is a five-time winner of the Dubai Sheema Classic.

• British Flat Racing Champion Apprentice (tied, 2008)
• British Flat Racing Champion Jockey (2022 & 2023)

• 2024 – 6th
• 2020 – 5th
• 2012 – 9th
• 2009 – 8th

Mickael Barzalona was born in Avignon, France, a grandson of Corsican trainer Christian Barzalona and nephew of former Flat and Jumps jockey Armand Barzalona. He began his career with France’s standout trainer, Andre Fabre, with whom he is still associated. He was also Godolphin’s number one rider in France before switching to become retained rider for the Aga Khan. A precocious sensation, he enjoyed a stunning Dubai Carnival in 2011, at age 19, winning major races for the Godolphin operation, and that momentum took him to a famous 2011 English Derby win aboard Pour Moi for Fabre and Coolmore. He then headed to Hong Kong for a short stint in 2011/12, notching one winner from 42 rides. Barzalona won the 2012 Dubai World Cup aboard Monterosso and the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Turf on Talismanic. In 2021, he claimed the Champion Stakes at Ascot with Sealiway before sealing the French Flat Racing Champion Jockey crown with 192 wins. He won the International Jockeys’ Championship in 2024 and following this has enjoyed plenty of success in 2025, forming a formidable partnership with Calandagan. The pair won three Group 1 races, namely King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Champion Stakes and Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. In addition, his victory in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe atop the Aga Khan’s Daryz is the highlight of his career. He also won the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, Preis von Europa and Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf this year.

• French Flat Racing Champion Jockey (2021)
• International Jockeys’ Championship winner (2024)

• 2024 – WON
• 2023 - 6th
• 2021 – 2nd (DH)
• 2020 – 11th
• 2018 - 8th (DH)
• 2016 - 10th

Brazilian sensation Joao Moreira, known as “Magic Man”, notched more than 2,500 wins all over the world. He relocated to Singapore in 2009 and was a dominant four-time champion jockey. He moved to Hong Kong in October of 2013 and was runner-up in the title race that term with 97 wins before clinching a first championship in a record smashing 2014/15 campaign that yielded an all-time high 145 wins – he demolished that record in 2015/16 with 168 wins, and improved again in 2016/17 with 170 wins. He partnered Rapper Dragon in 2017 as the horse became the first to win all three legs of the Four-Year-Old Classic Series (Hong Kong Classic Mile, Hong Kong Classic Cup, Hong Kong Derby). Moreira departed for Japan at the end of the 2017/18 season but returned to Hong Kong in December 2018 to ride as stable jockey to John Size, ending that term with 90 wins. In the 2020/21 season he won his fourth Hong Kong Champion Jockey title with 157 wins, including two at Group 1 level, and he also snared a second Hong Kong Derby triumph. In December, 2020 he became only the third jockey in history to notch 1,000 winners in Hong Kong and in the 2021/22 season he registered his 1,200th win. Overall, Moreira won four riding titles in Hong Kong and since departing the city’s ranks, he has enjoyed top-level success in Brazil, Japan and Australia. Moreira’s most recent Group 1 winner, Obataye, captured the 2025 Gran Premio Latinoamericano – South America’s richest race.

• Hong Kong Champion Jockey (2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17 & 2020/21)
• International Jockeys’ Championship winner (2012)
• Japan's World All-Star Jockeys winner (2015)
• Singapore Champion Jockey (2010, 2011, 2012 & 2013)
• Brazilian Eclipse Award winner (2006/07 & 2007/08)
• fastest 100 in a Hong Kong season (6 March, 2016)
• Hong Kong record for most wins in a season (170 in 2016/17)
• most wins in a Hong Kong race day (eight: 5 March, 2017)
• Singapore record for most wins in a season (206 in 2012)
• eight wins from eight rides at Kranji (6 September, 2013)
• eight wins in a day at Cidade Jardim (March, 2006).

• 2021 – 8th
• 2020 – 2nd
• 2019 - 6th (DH)
• 2017 - 9th (DH)
• 2016 - 8th (DH)
• 2015 - 6th
• 2014 - 2nd
• 2012 - WON
• 2010 - 9th (DH)

Christophe Lemaire leapt to prominence in 2004 thanks to his partnership with the brilliant French champion filly Divine Proportions and two years later he rode the crack mare Pride to win the Champion Stakes and Hong Kong Cup. Other top-class winners in those days include Stacelita, Makfi, Flotilla and Elusive Wave, while Dunaden carried him to a 2011 Melbourne Cup win. His first Japanese major came a few years earlier aboard Heart’s Cry in the 2005 Arima Kinen and the duo took the 2006 Dubai Sheema Classic. Star mare Vodka’s Japan Cup – one of four wins for Lemaire in the race – is also among his 60-plus Group 1 wins to date. In early 2015 he and Mirco Demuro became the first overseas riders to be granted full-time jockey licences in Japan. In 2016, he equalled the record of the great Yutaka Take for the most wins at a single Japanese race meeting with eight victories. In 2017 he became the first foreigner to be crowned Japan’s leading jockey, winning 199 Japan Racing Association (JRA) races. In 2023, he not only won the JRA Championship but also broke the record in terms of prize money. In that year he won four Group 1 races aboard legendary galloper Equinox. In 2025 he became the first jockey to win the Kikuka Sho three years in a row. He also won the 2025 Shuka Sho with Embroidery and Tenno Sho Autumn with Masquerade Ball. His other three Japan Cup wins came atop Almond Eye (2018 & 2019) and Equinox (2023).

• JRA Champion Jockey for Races Won (2017-21, 2023 & 2024)
• International Jockeys’ Championship winner (2009 [DH])

• 2018 – 10th (DH)
• 2012 – 10th (DH)
• 2011 – 3rd
• 2010 – 6th
• 2009 – WON (DH)
• 2008 – 2nd

Regarded as one of the world’s best jockeys, James McDonald – popularly known as ‘J-Mac’ – made a big impression in Hong Kong on his International Jockeys’ Championship debut when still a teenager back in 2011, finishing runner-up to Frankie Dettori. He returned the following May and partnered Xtension to victory in the 2012 Champions Mile at Sha Tin. Champion Apprentice in his homeland, he went on to claim the Championship there twice, firstly in 2008/09 and latterly with a New Zealand record tally of 207 for the 2010/11 season. In 2012 he won a first New Zealand Derby. He clinched his first Sydney Championship in 2014. In 2021, he won the Melbourne Cup – Australia’s most famous race – aboard Verry Elleegant, Darley Sprint Classic with Nature Strip, Coolmore Stud Stakes atop Home Affairs and Mackinnon Stakes with Zaaki. He scored a famous victory aboard Nature Strip in the 2022 King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot and was crowned the World’s Best Jockey that same year. McDonald has built a famed association with Hong Kong’s global champion Romantic Warrior, winning the Hong Kong Cup (2022-2024) three times, QEII Cup (2023 & 2024) twice and 2023 W.S. Cox Plate in Australia before the duo landed the 2024 Yasuda Kinen in Japan. The pair then famously campaigned to the Middle East, where they came agonisingly close to Saudi Cup glory in 2025 when defeated by Japan’s Forever Young. In 2025, another of his partnerships linked with Hong Kong saw the rider and Voyage Bubble complete the Triple Crown last season – becoming only the second in history to do so after legend River Verdon (1993/94). He has won over 100 Group 1 races globally, including the past four runnings of the W.S. Cox Plate with Anamoe (2022), Romantic Warrior (2023) and Via Sistina (2024 & 2025).

• Sydney Champion Jockey (2013/14, 2015/16, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 & 2022/23, 2023/24)
• New Zealand Champion Jockey (2008/09 & 2010/11)
• World’s Best Jockey Award winner (2022 & 2024)

• 2024 – 2nd (DH)
• 2023 – 8th (DH)
• 2022 – 9th (DH)
• 2021 – 2nd (DH)
• 2019 – 10th
• 2015 - 9th
• 2014 - 3rd
• 2012 - 10th (DH)
• 2011 - 2nd

Hugh Bowman’s name will forever be etched in racing folklore thanks to his famous partnership with Australia’s champion mare Winx. The winner of four consecutive W.S. Cox Plates at Moonee Valley, Winx won 37 of her 43 career starts in Australia, with Bowman partnering her to 25 Group 1 victories. Bowman has been crowned Sydney Champion Jockey on four occasions and has ridden more than 100 Group 1 winners. In Hong Kong, Bowman has enjoyed considerable success, having twice won the Hong Kong Derby, while an association with Werther also returned victories in the QEII Cup, the Hong Kong Gold Cup and the Champions & Chater Cup. He also won the International Jockeys’ Championship at Happy Valley in 2016, and he added another Group 1 win to his tally in the 2024 Chairman’s Sprint Prize aboard Invincible Sage. Born in rural New South Wales – Dunedoo to be exact – Bowman began working with horses at a young age. He comes from a lineage of horsemen, with both his grandfather and father amateur jockeys. At about 15 years old, Bowman began riding in country shows and picnic races. He also played polocrosse and participated in campdrafting. In 1997, he left school to begin his jockey apprenticeship and was indentured to Leanne Aspros at Bathurst. Bowman later honed his skills under legendary New South Wales trainer Ron Quinton, completing his apprenticeship in Sydney. During his career, Bowman has been associated with Winx, Exceed And Excel, Samantha Miss, Werther and Cheval Grand. In 2019, Bowman was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. In the 2024/25 season, Bowman rode a career-high 72 wins to finish second in the jockeys’ championship behind Zac Purton.

• Sydney Champion Jockey (2008/09, 2011/12, 2014/15, 2016/17)
• LONGINES World’s Best Jockey (2017)
• International Jockeys’ Championship (2016)
• Australian Racing Hall of Fame inductee (2019)
• Shergar Cup Silver Saddle winner (2007 & 2025)

• 2024 – 10th
• 2022 – 6th (DH)
• 2018 – 10th (DH)
• 2017- 4th
• 2016 - WON
• 2015 - 10th (DH)
• 2009 - 7th

Italian jockey Umberto Rispoli capped his first stint in Hong Kong with victory on Japan’s Rulership in the 2012 QEII Cup. He commenced his apprenticeship in his homeland in 2005 and was crowned Italian Champion Jockey in both the 2019 and 2010 racing seasons. That 2009 title came courtesy of 245 wins, a total that bettered the longstanding previous record of 229. He has achieved four G1 victories in Italy on Aoiffe Alainn (2010 Premio Lydia Tesio), Estejo (2011 Premio Presidente della Repubblica), Priore Philip (2013 Premio Gran Criterium) and Cleo Fan (2015 Premio Presidente della Repubblica). In early 2011 he rode in Japan, winning the Takamatsunomiya Kinen. A frequent winter rider in Hong Kong in recent times, he has also ridden with great success in France winning top-level races aboard Molly Malone in the 2012 Prix du Cadran and Vert De Grece in the 2014 Criterium International. He started his riding stints in Hong Kong in 2011/12 season, and amassed 122 wins during his nine seasons here before moving his riding base to the United States of America, where he has won the Santa Anita Derby, Shoemaker Mile Stakes, Rodeo Drive Stakes, Gamely Stakes, Frank E. Kilroe Mile Stakes and chiefly, the Preakness Stakes – the second leg of the American Triple Crown – aboard Journalism, and by doing so, became the first jockey from Italy win a Triple Crown race.

• Italian Champion Jockey (2009 & 2010)
• the first jockey from Italy to win an American Triple Crown race

• Debut