By ALAN AITKEN in HK Racing Post(www.racing.scmp.com)Douglas Whyte continues to give us a problem - he is so efficient at winning the jockeys' championship, there is nothing left to write about him. Clearly Matthew Chadwick was the new story of the jockeys' ranks, but Whyte's ninth consecutive championship happened like clockwork - while elsewhere around town people were writing songs about him - and the finest testament to the Durban Demon is that nobody expects anything else. He is the dog-bi

By ALAN AITKEN in HK Racing Post

(www.racing.scmp.com)

Douglas Whyte continues to give us a problem - he is so efficient at winning the jockeys' championship, there is nothing left to write about him. Clearly Matthew Chadwick was the new story of the jockeys' ranks, but Whyte's ninth consecutive championship happened like clockwork - while elsewhere around town people were writing songs about him - and the finest testament to the Durban Demon is that nobody expects anything else. He is the dog-bites-man story.

Paradoxically, admirable consistency diverts proper recognition away from what a feat it is, to simply turn up and win the championship every year against an impressive array of opponents. He didn't make the century this time because of a late flurry of careless-riding bans and he didn't add anything to his pile of records except another swag of wins, but then Whyte already owns all the records.

The professionalism it takes to be so consistent for so long is easily overlooked, but we have no intention of overlooking it here and Brett Prebble, who has taken over from Shane Dye as Whyte's shadow, deserves a strong mention, too. Riding 80 winners or so for each of the past three seasons also takes some doing, despite getting beaten in the championship, and Prebble must be about ready to throw everything at another attempt to topple the throne.

Elsewhere, the roster is changing slowly - long-termers such as Eric Saint-Martin and Felix Coetzee have departed the scene and, while he returns for part of the next edition, Gerald Mosse's switch to training in France must be imminent.

South African Weichong Marwing provided one of the positive stories, resurrecting his season as a club rider after a woeful start with Ricky Yiu Poon-fai's stable, while Zac Purton built on a sound first season to position himself as a top-five rider next term.