Delivering a reminder of talent and ambition, Jerry Chau shared riding honours at Sha Tin on Sunday with Joao Moreira to keep alive hopes of snaring the Tony Cruz Award as Hong Kong’s leading local jockey with a double.
Returning to the fray after missing Wednesday’s (23 March) Happy Valley meeting, Chau boosted his season’s tally to 24 to remain entrenched in a cluster of Tony Cruz Award contenders, along with Vincent Ho (32), Matthew Chadwick (30), Matthew Poon (24) and Derek Leung (23).
Moreira matched Chau’s haul with a brace to trim Zac Purton’s lead in the jockeys’ championship to three – 95-92 – as Frankie Lor and Ricky Yiu posted doubles.
With five winners from 12 starters this week, Lor has moved to within three wins of 11-time champion John Size in the title race and trails 61-58 after 57 of 88 scheduled meetings.
“It’s good to get winners,” Lor said, following up on his Happy Valley treble on Wednesday (24 March) with the wins of Beauty Live and My Ecstatic. “Always happy with winners.”
Moreira closed the meeting with victory on Lor’s Beauty Live and was clearly impressed with the Shamus Award four-year-old, who now boasts three wins from five starts.
“He is still learning what racing is about. He’s still green and immature – and that’s good sign because it means you’ve got a horse who can still improve and that’s what we’re looking for,” the Brazilian said.
“He’s a very nice horse with a bright future going forward. I would say we are still very far away from getting him to his top rating.”
Chau logged a double when My Sugar led throughout to win the Class 2 Cheung Shan Handicap (1600m) for Jimmy Ting after Flying Season posted a gaping four-length victory in the Class 3 Kwai Fong Handicap (1000m) for Manfred Man.
“Very happy to be back and to get two winners. Flying Season keeps on improving and he’s doing everything well now,” Chau said. “In the beginning, he jumped slow and did things wrong, but now he’s changed a lot.
“My Sugar jumped fast today and he relaxed well and was strong at the finish.”
Ting, who improved his seasonal tally to 24 with My Sugar’s fifth Hong Kong success, said: “His health is now better. Today, he is very lucky because some horses from Conghua were scratched and then the favourite (Beauty Joy) was scratched.
“You cannot run this horse too much because of his health, but it’s good to win.”
