Basil Marcus' younger brother Anton will be hoping he has a quiet night at Sha Tin tonight - at least where the stewards are concerned. The South African returns from the sidelines after serving the second of two five-meeting bans which have restricted his season to just two winners from eight rides.
While that is the best strike-rate of any jockey in Hong Kong, it is no consolation for a rider who might have expected that, by the 13th meeting of the season, he would have had 60 rides and at least five or six winners.
Marcus' first ban came out of the second race on opening day but, having returned with a double on September 22, he was hit with another careless riding charge. 'Sure, I was as much disappointed with myself as anything else,' Marcus said.
'You just start to take off and then a ban brings you back to the start again and you have to work hard to get going when you come back. It is disappointing but you musn't spend too much time on post-mortems.' After finishing last season well, Marcus has won on eight of his past 33 rides and, while he is pleased with his 25 per cent strike-rate, sitting on the sidelines isn't how he would have planned to achieve it.
'I guess I can't really complain. In terms of winners, the past five meetings I've ridden have been great. I just have to make sure I'm there at more meetings,' he said wryly. 'My support has been very good and I've got rides in five of the seven races on Wednesday night so the support for this meeting has been good too.'
That support is testimony to Marcus' attitude, which saw him back at the barrier trials on September 25 despite knowing that he was out of race-riding until tonight.