Basil Marcus, the professionals' professional, arrived here in August 1990 as a relatively unheralded 33-year-old South African jockey. He leaves at the end of this season as a legend, his record forever etched into the annals of local racing history.
No one - no other jockey, no other trainer, not even the great River Verdon himself - has achieved more in the past decade of racing than this utterly dedicated, utterly diligent and utterly determined naturalised South African who left the then Rhodesia at the age of seven and will soon be bound for a new challenge and a fresh start in England.
Marcus was immediately a winner in Hong Kong, taking the first feature event of the season, the traditional Kwangtung Cup on Craig's Dragon for retaining trainer Lam Hung-fie at Happy Valley way back on September 15, the opening day of the 1990 season.
Marcus had also won on his very first ride when he went to England in the summer of that same year.
He was champion apprentice in the third year of his five-year apprenticeship in South Africa and in the last two years of that apprenticeship, aged just 19, he was also the Cape Town champion.
He was then three times the Natal champion and for the last 11 years of his South African career he was never out of the top four.