A TRUE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD'S TRAINING RANKS IS READY TO TACKLE A BRAND NEW CHALLENGE

By Graham Potter | Monday, July 20, 2020

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing this copy, these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

In terms of their respective racing industries, it is not often that you can say that Hong Kong’s loss is Australia’s gain … but that is undoubtedly the case when you are talking about champion trainer John Moore.

Moore completed his final meeting as a Hong Kong trainer at the Happy Valley meeting last Wednesday and he will now head to Australia where, after sitting out the required quarantine period, he will step out in a brand-new training partnership with his brother Gary with the team being based in Sydney.

During his time in Hong Kong, Moore landed seven trainer premierships. The records he has set there includes the most wins by a trainer (1,735) and he is also the all-time leading trainer in terms of prize money earned … which is more than HK$2 billion.

Moore won 36 Group 1 races, He won the Hong Kong Derby a record six times, and he has guided the fortunes, to spectacular effect, of two greats of the racing world, Able Friend and Beauty Generation … and I could go on.

So, you can see why Australia will welcome a trainer of his stature and a man of his quality with open arms.

His rivals to be might not wholeheartedly join in the embrace because of the elevated level of competition Moore brings … but even they will acknowledge that Moore’s presence ups the game and, with the expertise and the contacts he has, for many he will arrive like the proverbial breath of fresh air.

For the record, the move from Hong Kong has been forced on Moore.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club has long held a rule that forces trainers to retire from the Hong Kong racing precinct at the age of sixty-five. In recent years, a special performance-based addendum to the rule was brought in allowing those who met the special criteria to extend their training career beyond that but with that extension having a strict five-year limit.

Any trainer working under that extension ruling would have to retire at the end of the season in which they turned seventy years of age. John Moore turned seventy in March this year.

So, the curtain has come down on Moore’s Hong Kong career, where he was first licensed in 1985.

Interestingly enough, Moore’s direct replacement in the Hong Kong training ranks is David Hayes, a trainer with obvious outstanding credentials of his own. When Hayes left Hong Kong in 2005, after a previous successful ten years in the precinct, he always indicated he would like to return one day.

That day has arrived. As the door to Hong Kong racing closes on John Moore, so it opens for David Hayes.

Watching two of the world’s leading trainers taking on new challenges … how they settle in, how they build their stables, what champions they are going to unveil … well, quite simply, it is all is going to make fascinating viewing.

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