Faced with a monumental challenge to overtake Matthew Chadwick and Vincent Ho in the race for the Tony Cruz Award as Hong Kong\u2019s most successful home-grown jockey for the 2021\/22 season, Derek Leung refuses to concede the battle is lost after a treble at Sha Tin on Sunday (10 July).<\/p>
Trailing Chadwick (54) and Vincent Ho (49) with 47 wins \u2013 having comfortably surpassed his previous best haul of 39 wins in a campaign \u2013 Leung has only 20 races and two meetings left in the season to make further inroads.<\/p>
On a day when the contest for the jockeys\u2019 and trainers\u2019 championships were largely unchanged with Zac Purton and Joao Moreira both riding a winner each to maintain the status quo at 132-130 and Frankie Lor (90) and John Size (84) failing to add to their totals, Leung is hoping for a miracle.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cI need a lot of luck and something magical, but I will do my best,\u201d Leung said. \u201cThis is my best season and I\u2019m still hungry and I want to ride more winners before the end of the season. I\u2019m very happy to come back in this way from suspension. Things are going well at the moment, but I want to ride more winners.\u201d<\/p>
Leung scored on Chicken Dance for Paul O\u2019Sullivan, Woodfire Bro for Peter Ho and All Riches for Ricky Yiu, who shared training honours on the card with Tony Cruz.<\/p>
For all of Leung\u2019s gains, Chadwick\u2019s victory on Cruz\u2019s talented Beauty Charge in the Class 3 Stevenson Cup Handicap (1200m) means Ho and Leung \u2013 who both retain mathematical chances of Tony Cruz Award victory \u2013 face a monumental task with opportunities dwindling ahead of the Saturday, 16 July season finale.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]
Beauty Charge powers over the top.<\/p>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Cruz will aim Beauty Charge at next season\u2019s lucrative Four-Year-Old Classic Series \u2013 Hong Kong Classic Mile (1600m), Hong Kong Classic Cup (1800m) and BMW Hong Kong Derby (2000m) \u2013 after the colt\u2019s impressive victory.<\/p>
\u201cDefinitely, for sure,\u201d Cruz responded when asked if the Havana Gold three-year-old would tackle the series.<\/p>
\u201cHe\u2019s definitely an improving horse as you can see. He had only two starts overseas and this is only his second start in Hong Kong and he\u2019s definitely improved from his first start.<\/p>
\u201cI\u2019ve got high expectations of this horse and I expected him to perform today and the public all knew exactly how good this horse is.\u201d<\/p>
Francis Lui might plot a similar course with Universal Horizon after the Shalaa colt debuted successfully in the Class 4 Li Cup Handicap (1200m) under Vincent Ho.<\/p>
\u201cHe\u2019s a nice horse. He gives the impression he can step up in distance. When he came to me, he was bulky and a bit fat but he\u2019s always shown nice ability,\u201d Lui said.<\/p>
Cruz closed the 86th meeting of the year in style when Circuit Stellar fended off favourite Keefy to win the Class 2 Chow Silver Plate Handicap (1400m) under a clever Luke Ferraris ride.<\/p>
Formerly known as Magnanimous when trained to three wins in Ireland, including Listed success at Leopardstown in June, 2021, by Joseph O\u2019Brien, Circuit Stellar impressed Ferraris with his resolve when challenged by Keefy.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”3144″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
\u201cHe had the run of the race and as we peeled into the straight, he got a split between runners and he fought to the line \u2013 a win full of merit,\u201d Ferraris said. \u201cHe really enjoyed the fight and he relished the style of running, so going forward he\u2019s got options.<\/span> [vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”3143″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Faced with a monumental challenge to overtake Matthew Chadwick and Vincent Ho in the race for the Tony Cruz Award as Hong Kong\u2019s most successful home-grown jockey for the 2021\/22 season, Derek Leung refuses to concede the battle is lost after a treble at Sha Tin on Sunday (10 July).Trailing Chadwick… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":3145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"2normal","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3141"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3147,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions\/3147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/season-end\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cMr Cruz has been hugely instrumental, so all credit to him and his team.\u201d<\/span>
Moreira struck first in the championship tussle with Purton with a short head victory aboard Forever Friends for Caspar Fownes in the Pearce Memorial Challenge Cup Plate (1200m) for Griffins, narrowly denying Purton aboard Happy Won.<\/span>
Purton restored a two-win margin when David Hall-trained Flying Mighty claimed the Class 5 Wong Cup Handicap (1600m), storming from midfield to post his first victory in Hong Kong at his 22nd attempt.<\/span>
Unbeaten in two starts in Australia for Kim Waugh when known as Hussonibis, Flying Mighty lifted Hall\u2019s seasonal tally to 30.<\/span>
Ricky Yiu matched Cruz\u2019s effort to slot a double, teaming with Leung and All Riches in the Class 4 Chan Trophy Handicap (1400m) and Lyle Hewitson and Jolly Ruler in the Class 3 Ip Jug Handicap (1200m, dirt). All Riches\u2019 triumph catapulted 2019\/20 champion Yiu to the 50-win mark for the season.<\/span>
Leung also teamed with Peter Ho and Woodfire Bro to clinch the Class 4 Arculli Trophy Handicap (1600m).<\/span>
Luke Currie and Michael Chang combined with Moeraki to snare the Class 4 Purves Quaich Handicap (1200m, dirt), providing satisfaction for both jockey and trainer.<\/span>
\u201cI was hoping to get one before the end of the season \u2013 I was hoping to get a few \u2013 but he\u2019s probably the first horse that I\u2019ve ridden here that\u2019s started favourite. They\u2019re all hard races to win, but it\u2019s important to win on those horses,\u201d Currie said.<\/span>
While Currie is looking to a family reunion in Australia before returning to Hong Kong for the 2022\/23 season, Chang posted his 16th victory for the current term.<\/span>
\u201cThis horse deserved to win in Class 4. His rating had dropped a lot. He had a little break and we started from scratch again and brought him up slowly. His best performances have been on dirt, he had a good gate and it wasn\u2019t a strong field \u2013 so he deserved to win,\u201d Chang said.<\/span>
Leung coaxed the best out of Paul O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s Chicken Dance to land the Class 4 Swaine Cup Handicap (1200m), marking the gelding\u2019s first win since October, 2019.<\/span>
\u201cHe probably hasn\u2019t performed as we thought he would but today the sting is out of the track and he got his chance and took advantage of it,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan said.<\/span>
Hong Kong racing continues on Wednesday night (13 July) with the final Happy Valley meeting of the season.<\/span><\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"