HK - CONNECTIONS HOPING THE SHOE FITS FOR JIMMY IN HONG KONG

By Hong Kong Jockey Club | Friday, December 2, 2011

New Zealand four-year-old Jimmy Choux has been the best performed horse in his home country in the past 18 months and transposed that form to Group 1 level in Australia.

Now he’s set to take on the world in Hong Kong.

With five Group 1 wins to his credit; a fine record at 1600m and a great overall record of 12 wins and 7 placings from 23 starts the horse is set to perform well in the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Mile.

Jimmy Choux was runner-up in Australia’s premier weight-for-age race the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley where the winner Pinker Pinker secured a miraculous rails run to deny him victory.

He than ran fourth in the Group 1 Emirates Stakes (1600m) at Flemington on 5 November - a handicap race in which he conceded at least 9 lb to the three horses who beat him.

Anchored by top-weight of 128 lb from a wide draw, Jimmy Choux ran home gamely from midfield to finish just behind the lighter weighted place-getters and has pleased his trainer John Bary since that run.

“He’s been out in a paddock where he’s based outside Melbourne so he’s freshened up well. Maybe the Emirates, under the handicap conditions, wasn’t the ideal race but we wanted to give him another run before Hong Kong,” Bary said, “now we’re all looking forward to what he can do against international competition.”

Racing has been in Bary’s blood - his great grandfather Wilfred Stead owned the 1916 Melbourne Cup winner Sasanof - but he has only been a full time trainer for the past four years with his working life taking various forms from farming to playing polo internationally.

“We had a bit of luck early when I started training and then along came Jimmy Choux, so we’ve been blessed,” he said.

Jockey Jonathon Riddell has spent a career battling weight problems, and before the arrival of this horse he was much better known for his success riding over the jumps.

“Jonathon has ridden the horse perfectly and, like me, he just loves to win.” Bary said.

Jimmy Choux is raced by his breeder Richard Wood who also bred and raced Count Chivas, a Sydney Cup and South Australian Derby winner who ran second in the 1995 Caulfield Cup and 1996 Melbourne Cup.

Five years ago he saw an advertisement in a New Zealand racing paper listing the Centaine mare Cierzo for sale and was happy to buy her for just NZ$2500 when he realised her pedigree traced back to Count Chivas.

“For only $2500 I didn’t think I could go wrong,” Wood said. And he didn’t, as the subsequent mating of Cierzo with Thorn Park produced Jimmy Choux.

Wood, a Hawkes Bay finance consultant, points out that Jimmy Choux had become a people’s horse - partly because of his “catchy” name which was suggested by Wood’s wife, Liz.

“She loves her shoes and wanted to call him Jimmy Choo after the classic shoe, but it’s a trade name so we called him Jimmy Choux,” he said.