We may need two pairs of sunglasses for an outlook this bright. This was a season to have Charles Dickens spinning in his grave. It was the best of the times, it was...the best of times. An age of wisdom and an epoch of belief, a yin without a yang. The 2013-14 season had only one side to it and it was almost faultless, reports Alan Aitken in the Racing Post in HK (www.racing.scmp.com)
The "most remarkable and notable season in our 130-year history", said Jockey Club chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges on Sunday.
A meeting was lost for the first time in five years to Typhoon Usagi in September but it was comfortably accommodated elsewhere in a season with strong attendance and even stronger turnover that pushed through HK$100 billion for the first time and parked at HK$101.838 billion when the dust settled. The sporting side was memorable on every level.
Hong Kong horses registered their best international results, five wins overseas as well as at home. We witnessed a four-year-old classic series for the ages and a jockeys' title race that saw Douglas Whyte finally dethroned by Zac Purton after an incredible 13-year reign, and entry to the scene of Brazilian sensation Joao Moreira.
The nine-year Dream Team of Whyte and John Size inexplicably ended and the South African took a supply side hit but still managed his second-best year in prizemoney - HK$106 million - after winning two of the four December internationals.
Moreira was lured from Singapore with promises of Ambitious Dragon. It never happened after the horse suffered a tendon injury, and then a rash of suspensions ensured he didn't win the jockeys' title, but Moreira lived up to the hype - going within three wins of a century and HK$700,000 of HK$100 million in stakes despite missing a third of the season.
The excitement of the jockeys' title subsided by June before but the slow-burning thriller was again the trainers' race. A four-cornered contest in May distilled down to Fownes and Size on the last day. They won nearly half of the card to keep it bubbling until Fownes was able to dedicate victory to his cancer-stricken father, former trainer Lawrie, after a countback of seconds.
John Moore was the first out of contention for that trainers' title but won the one he prefers with a record-smashing pile of almost HK$137 million in prizemoney domestically that soared over HK$150 million with overseas wins included