Muzi can equal race record

Jack Milner

Jockey Muzi Yeni will be looking to equal a national record when he lines up in the Grade 1 HKJC World Pool Premier’s Champions Challenge over 2000m on Saturday

The most successful jockey in this R2-million race so far with five wins is Anton Marcus but he has since retired and Yeni will be looking to equal that total when he rides Royal Victory.

Yeni has won this race four times and will be looking for a double on Nathan Kotzen-trained Royal Victory, who won this race in 2024.

Two of his triumphs have been for trainer Joe Soma, winning for the first time on Happy Landing in 2011. The jockey/trainer combination struck again in 2021 when brilliant Got The Greenlight took top honours.

However, in between the two Yeni teamed up with trainer Robbie Sage aboard Coral Fever in 2018 and of course, last year on Royal Victory.

Marcus’ five wins were on Pick Six (2007) and Smart Banker (2009) for Charles Laird, Yorker (2014) for Geoff Woodruff, Legal Eagle (2016) for Sean Tarry and Hawwaam (2018) for Mike de Kock.

There is no doubt Richard Fourie is the hottest jockey around. He won the Champion Jockeys’ title last season riding an incredible 378 winners, smashing Anthony Delpech’s long-held record by 44 more wins.

However, he has not won this race – yet – but teams up with trainer Alec Laird for whom he rides favourite Fire Attack. Laird has had an excellent run with wins in the Grade 1 Betway Summer Cup with Atticus Finch and the Grade 2 TAB Gauteng Guineas with Parisian Walkway, and the pair are undoubtedly the hot team to follow in this year’s race.

Being run at weight-for-age generally fancied horses tend to win this race but it has had its upsets, specifically in 2022 when 66-1 shot Astrix, trained by Paul Peter, led from the off under jockey JP van der Merwe, and kept going to hold off favourite Sparkling Water by a head.

Other than that, last year’s winner, Royal Victory went off at 4-1, in 2023 Puerto Manzo won at 6-1, while in 2018 and 2019 it went to Mike de Kock-trained Hawwaam, who won both as the odds-on favourite. Got The Greenlight won in 2020 at 3-1 so overall it has been a good race for form runners.

In terms of trainers, there has been a reasonable assortment winning this race but the De Kock yard has won most with four champions in the last 19 years.

De Kock has trained three of the shortest price winners of this race with Hawwaam (2018 and 2019) a strong odds-on favourite in both of his wins and Ilha Da Vitoria (2006) starting at 1-1.

His other winner was Europa Point in 2012.

De Kock has since joined forces with his son, Mathew, who returned from Australia to share the stable responsibilities. They saddle filly Silver Sanctuary who has won a Grade 1 fillies’ race at Greyville in Durban and is very decent on her day.

If she chooses to rise to the occasion, she could well cause the upset, especially as she will be ridden by JP van der Merwe who has already pulled off a 66-1 victory in this race.

While most jockeys would argue that “a bad draw is a bad draw” many would agree that if you’re going to draw wide in a race over 2000m, Turffontein is the course to be on. And with only 11 runners, the draw is unlikely to have any impact on the outcome, though most jockeys would prefer to be drawn in the top six barrier positions.

Six races on the day will be Hong Kong World Pool events. That will allow people to bet into massive TAB pools without affecting the prices.

Hong Kong will be simulcasting Races 6 to 11, the four Grade 1 races as well as the Grade 2 Wilgerbosdrift Bridget Oppenheimer SA Oaks and Grade 2 TAB Hawaii Stakes.