The axe fell on three long-serving trainers yesterday as the Hong Kong Jockey Club carried out its threat to crack down on licence-holders who fail to meet certain performance criteria. Bruce Hutchison, Wylie Wong Wai-lit and Chris Cheung Ting-pong will not be re-licensed next season after falling short of 12 winners - the main yardstick used by the Club to assess training performance.
But the Club announced that John Moore's long-serving assistant Man Ka-leung had won the race to become a trainer in his own right, joining Australian John Size as Hong Kong's newest licence-holders from July 1.
The axed trio were given the damning verdict after three separate hour-long hearings by the Licensing Committee, which asked them to 'show cause' why they should keep their licences. Hutchison has only nine winners to his credit this season, while Cheung and Wong have five apiece, and the trio have also fallen short of some or all of the Club's other performance criteria - a five per cent winners-to-runners strike-rate, $6 million in prize-money, 20 sound horses in training, and the trainer's overall integrity and disciplinary record.
Hutchison was the most borderline case as he fulfilled the criteria on prize-money and stable strength and has endured a luckless season with 20 second places, and the Australian trainer last night said he was considering an appeal. 'I have been here for 22 years and my children have grown up here and are living and working here,' he said. 'I appealed once before about 10 years ago and the Club were very good in letting me stay and I hope they might change their minds again because I still have 25 horses and the support of my owners.'
Hutchison, still reeling from David Harrison's serious accident on his horse My Chief at Sha Tin on Wednesday night, added: 'David's fall makes my problems seem minor by comparison, but I have to consider what is best for my family. I will sit down and discuss things with them over the next couple of days and then decide what to do.'
Hutchison's son Clint is a racing tipster for the South China Morning Post, while daughter Alix is married to Caspar Fownes, who yesterday was made an assistant trainer. Fownes is currently trainer's assistant to his father Lawrie, but the Club plans to abolish that role - which is paid for and appointed by the trainer - in favour of having only Club-employed assistant trainers.