Berry, Tommy
Age 24, Berry became the first HKJC licensed rider to win a G1 on the first day of his contract when successful with Military Attack in the 2013 APQEII Cup. That G1 win followed on the heels of victories in the Golden Slipper atop Overreach and Sacred Falls in the Doncaster Mile that month. His first G1 win came on Epaulette in the 2012 Golden Rose Stakes and he followed up with a G1 double at Randwick on 6 October, 2012 atop Fat Al (Epsom Handicap) and Glencadam Gold (Metropolitan Handicap). He began his career in 2007 and was New South Wales champion apprentice in the 2009/10 season. In April 2011, he became stable jockey to Gai Waterhouse in Sydney alongside Nash Rawiller. He opted to take up a contract with The Hong Kong Jockey Club from 28 April 2013 until season’s end and went on to register 22 wins. He scored famous wins in the HKG1 HK Classic Cup and HKG1 BMW Hong Kong Derby on Designs On Rome and rode that horse to victory in the 2014 APQEII Cup as he notched back-to-back wins in the race, the third rider to do so. Having netted 25 wins last season, he also rode a single win this term for a Hong Kong total of 48. This year in Australia, he rode Vancouver for a G1 win in the Golden Slipper Stakes and also Chautauqua in the G1 T J Smith Stakes early this month.
Bowman, Hugh
Age 34, Bowman boasts an outstanding career record with more than 1600 wins including many of the major races on the Australian racing calendar. He has claimed the Sydney Jockeys' Championship on two occasions, taking the title for the 2007/2008 racing season with 150 wins at a winning percentage of 20%, and again in 2011/2012 with 140 wins at 19%. No less than 40 wins at G1 level include the 2010, 2011 and 2013 renewals of the AAMI Victoria Derby on Lion Tamer, Sangster and Polanski respectively. He is also known to Hong Kong racing participants having competed in the 2009 IJC and completed a three-month contract in Hong Kong at the end of the 2013/14 season, during which time he notched 13 wins. He has ridden six G1 wins in Australia this season (as of 13 April), including Hallowed Crown in the Randwick Guineas and Pride Of Dubai in the ATC Sires Produce Stakes.
Callan, Neil
Age 36, Neil Callan has, over the past several seasons, been ranked in the top echelon of riders in the UK and finished runner-up in the championship there in 2005 (151 wins) and 2007 (170 wins). He has ridden the winners of 8 international Group 1 races: the Middle Park Stakes (2005 Amadeus Wolf, 2013 Astaire), Racing Post Trophy (2005 Palace Episode), Nunthorpe Stakes (2009 Borderlescott), Fillies' Mile (2009 Hibaayeb), two atop Pressing (2007 Premio Roma & 2009 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis Bayerisches Zuchtrennen) and the Gran Premio del Jockey Club (2010 Rainbow Peak). He also partnered Pressing to win Turkey's International Topkapi Trophy (G2) in three successive years culminating with the 2010 renewal. In May 2014 he notched his first HKG1 on Blazing Speed in the Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup and added the 2014 G2 Jockey Club Cup on the gelding. He won the 2015 HKG1 Hong Kong Classic Mile on Beauty Only. He first rode in HK in the 2010/11 season and rode five winners. He notched 12 in 2011/12, a further nine in 2012/13, and in an extended stay in 2013/14 he rode 27. In this his first full Hong Kong season he has ridden 32 wins for a HK total of 85 (as of 22 April).
Fukunaga, Yuichi
Age 38 and one of the stars of Japanese racing, former Rookie of the Year Yuichi Fukunaga has 1820 career wins and has twice been Japan’s champion jockey (2011 & 2013). He currently leads the premiership with 47 wins (as of 16 April). He first made his mark at the top level with victory in the 1999 Oka Sho atop Primo Ordine. His five overseas G1 triumphs include the 2014 Dubai Duty Free on Just A Way, the 2005 American Oaks on his Yushun Himba heroine Cesario and Eishin Preston’s wins in the Hong Kong Mile (2001) and QEII Cup (2002 & 2003), and he has no less than 23 G1 wins to his name. Further G1 wins in his homeland include the Tenno Sho (Autumn), Yasuda Kinen and Kikuka Sho. His father was the famous jockey Yoichi Fukunaga.
Leung, Derek
Age 26, Derek Leung's first start was in June 2007 in New Zealand. One of those involved in a four-way battle for the 2009/10 apprentice jockeys' championship, he came up five winners short of eventual champion Keith Yeung. Despite that, he got consolation at Kranji, Singapore when he was crowned winner of the Asian Young Guns Challenge 2010. His biggest victory to date came on Inspiration in the HKG3 Premier Bowl in October 2009. He reached the graduation benchmark after claiming his 70th win on board Star Of Fame on 1 June 2011. He ended the 2013/14 campaign with 18 wins and has 21 so far this term for an all-time Hong Kong tally of 157 wins (as of 22 April).
Moreira, Joao
Age 30, Joao “Magic Man” Moreira leads the Premiership in Hong Kong this season. Champion Jockey in Singapore in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, he relocated to Hong Kong in October 2013 and rode 97 wins to finish 2nd in the premiership. He achieved a second career eight-timer when winning on all eight of his mounts at Kranji in September, 2013. Moreira’s early career achievements in South America brought over 1,000 wins and two Brazilian Eclipse Awards as well as a notable victory in the G1 Derby Argentino in 2006 on Eu Tambem. His major highlights in Hong Kong include the G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile, G1 Stewards’ Cup and G1 Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup on Able Friend and the G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup and G1 Hong Kong Gold Cup on Designs On Rome. He also partnered Amber Sky and Sterling City to a famous G1 double at the 2014 Dubai World Cup meeting, and has increased his ever-growing Australian G1 tally this year with a win aboard Brazen Beau in the Newmarket Handicap. Moreira spectacularly landed the LONGINES IJC spoils in 2012 with a last race victory. He has a phenomenal 101 HK wins so far this season for a total of 201 (as of 22 April). On 1 March, 2015, he equalled the Hong Kong record of six wins in a day held by Douglas Whyte and Brett Prebble.
Pasquier, Stephane
Age 37, Pasquier started as an apprentice with Robert Collet, winning on his second ride for the trainer at Amiens in September, 1995. Became second jockey to the Wildenstein family in July 2004 and won his first G1 in the famous silks atop Westerner in the Prix Royal Oak that October. Appointed Wildenstein first jockey in 2005. In 2007 he was contracted to ride for Khalid Abdulla and was French Champion Jockey for the first time that year. He also partnered the outstanding Manduro (owned by Baron von Ullmann) to a sequence of five major wins in 2007 that included the Prix d’Ispahan, Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Prix Jacques le Marois. In 2010 he became the retained rider for the Niarchos Family and in the past two seasons he has enjoyed G1 successes in those silks atop Maxios (2013 Prix d’Ispahan and Prix du Moulin) and Karakontie (2013 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, 2014 Poule d’Essai des Poulains and Breeders’ Cup Mile). His 22 G1 wins also include Rail Link’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (2006), the 1,000 Guineas and the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches on Special Duty (2010) and Lucayan’s Poule d’Essai des Poulains (2012).
Peslier, Olivier
Age 42, and four times France’s champion jockey, Olivier Peslier has seven LONGINES HKIR wins – Docksider (1999) and Hat Trick (2005), Patripal (1995), Borgia (1999) and Doctor Dino (2007 & 2008) in the Vase, and Vision D’Etat (2009) in the Cup. In October 2012 he notched a fourth win in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe aboard Solemia and he has also won the Japan Cup twice in his career among over 100 G1 wins worldwide. He is associated with the great Goldikova, whom he partnered to 14 G1 wins including three G1 Breeders’ Cup Miles, and champions such as Peintre Celebre, Zenno Rob Roy and Banks Hill. In 2012 he rode Cirrus Des Aigles to wins in the G1 Dubai Sheema Classic, G1 Prix Ganay and G2 Prix Dollar and 2013 brought a second G1 Prix du Jockey Club win, thanks to Intello, 16 years after his first on Peintre Celebre. His two G1 wins in 2014 came on Charm Spirit in the Prix Jean Prat and Ascot’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
Purton, Zac
Age 32, Zac Purton is Hong Kong’s current Champion Jockey. He notched the fastest 50 in Hong Kong history last term and ended the 2013/14 campaign as the jurisdiction’s second century maker with 112 wins, just two shy of Douglas Whyte’s record. Purton won the Brisbane jockeys' premiership as an apprentice in 2003 before moving to Sydney where he came second only to perennial champion Darren Beadman. His first G1 win came on Excites in the 2006 Produce Stakes at Randwick and his initial major Hong Kong win was in the 2010 HKG1 Stewards’ Cup on Fellowship. Further big-race wins have followed in Hong Kong, notably Ambitious Dragon’s G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile in 2012, Military Attack’s HKG1 Hong Kong Gold Cup in 2013, Dominant’s 2013 G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Vase and a first Hong Kong Derby win on Luger in 2015. His international achievements feature Little Bridge’s G1 King’s Stand Stakes success at Royal Ascot in 2012; Military Attack’s G1 SIA Cup triumph in 2013; Aerovelocity’s G1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen in March 2015; and wins last year in the Doncaster Mile, George Main Stakes and Caulfield Cup. Purton won Japan’s World Super Jockeys Series in 2012. He has 72 wins this term at a strike rate of 21% for a HK career total of 509 (as of 22 April).
Teetan, Karis
Age 24, Karis Teetan, was well ensconced in the top 10 of the South African Jockeys' Championship when he left for Hong Kong in August, 2013. After entering the South African National Jockey Academy at the age of 14 Teetan went on to be crowned Champion South African Apprentice Jockey in 2008 before graduating in 2009 with 147 winners to his credit. Teetan passed the 100 winners mark in every season as a senior jockey in South Africa. He has recorded six G1/local G1 wins with his inaugural success at the top level being in his native Mauritius on 24 November 2008 aboard Halo Hunter. His other G1 wins include Grisham in the 2011 Castle Tankard in Zimbabwe, and in South Africa Thunder Dance in the 2012 Paddock Stakes, and Jackson in the 2012 Investec Cape Derby and the 2012 Daily News 2000. Teetan represented South Africa in the 2012 International Jockeys' Invitational in Seoul, Korea and in the 2008 Macau Apprentice Jockeys Invitation Races. He notched 50 wins in his first HK season in 2013/14, including the HKG2 Chairman's Trophy on Able Friend, the HKG3 Queen Mother Memorial Cup and HKG3 Premier Plate on Bubble Chic, and the HKG3 HK Macau Trophy on Super Lifeline. This season he took the HKG1 Hong Kong Classic Cup on Thunder Fantasy and has 21 wins so far for a HK total of 71 (as of 22 April).
Williams, Craig
Age 37 and one of the sport’s most respected riders, the effervescent Craig Williams is a formidable big-race pilot with an enviable record in G1 races. Since starting out in his homeland at age 16, he has traversed the globe notching big-race wins in Britain, Japan, France, Dubai, Hong Kong and Australia. His G1 haul includes the 2011 Hong Kong Vase on Dunaden, whom he also partnered to win the 2012 Caulfield Cup – a second successive win in the race following Southern Speed in 2011. Williams has landed the Cox Plate twice, the Victoria Derby, the Golden Slipper, the Spring edition of Japan’s Tenno Sho, the Al Quoz Sprint and the Dewhurst Stakes, and has accrued no fewer than 116 Hong Kong wins (as of 13 April). His G1 tally this year consists of the Rosehill Guineas on Volkstok’n’barrell and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes on APQEII Cup contender Criterion.
Whyte, Douglas
Age 43, Whyte was born in Durban, South Africa. He was champion jockey in Hong Kong for 13 consecutive seasons from 2000/01, losing his title to Zac Purton in 2013/14. At Sha Tin on April 7, 2013 he rode six winners to equal Brett Prebble's Hong Kong record of most winners in a day. He holds the record for career wins in Hong Kong: 1,674 (as of 22 April), with 62 this season, including HKG1 Centenary Sprint Cup atop Peniaphobia. He is the only jockey ever to reach 1,000 winners in Hong Kong, and his monstrous tally of 114 winners in 2005/06 broke his own record for a season. His several Hong Kong G1 wins have come on luminaries such as Indigenous, London News, Oriental Express, Packing Winner, Best Of The Best, Armada, Ambitious Dragon, Glorious Days, Akeed Mofeed and Gold-Fun. He has won the Hong Kong Derby on Super Satin (2010), Fay Fay (2012) and Akeed Mofeed (2013). At the 2013 LONGINES HKIR he rode a double on Akeed Mofeed (HK Cup) and Glorious Days (HK Mile). He was third in the 2013/14 premiership and ended the campaign as the highest prize-money earner for the eighth consecutive season with HK$106.3 million.
