Lloyd's sues Jockey Club over dead thoroughbred

A landmark court action in the name of businessman and socialite Dickson Poon began yesterday in an attempt to hold the Hong Kong Jockey Club responsible for the loss of a thoroughbred horse he owned in a 1998 riding accident.

In what is a world first, Lloyd's insurers, using Mr Poon's name, are targeting the Jockey Club and the estate of female apprentice jockey Willy Kan Wai-yu after Mr Poon's horse, Harbour Master, was destroyed following a feature race at Sha Tin on May 3, 1998. The action seeks the amount the insurers paid out for the loss of the horse and unspecified damages for future loss of earnings.

Joseph Fok, SC, counsel for the Jockey Club and the estate of Kan, who died after a later racing accident, told the Court of First Instance yesterday the law had never been tested on this point and it could expose jockeys to lawsuits every time they rode a race.

Presently, jockeys owe a duty of care to each other when racing but that duty has never been extended to an owner whose horse is involved in the race.

To illustrate his case, Mr Fok pointed to a report in yesterday's South China Morning Post sports section which covered the pile-up in the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, in which eight cars were knocked out of the race after driver Ralf Schumacher ran up the back of fellow racer Rubens Barrichello's Ferrari.

'If you look at that [accident], does that then mean Fiat is entitled to sue Schumacher and say to him, 'You are liable for denting the fender of Mr Barrichello's [car]?' ' he said.

Mr Fok also said racing was a sport in which the dangers were well known by both jockeys and owners. He said the law was more concerned with protecting human beings - jockeys - from one another than extending that protection to horses.