Trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam, soon to depart Hong Kong to restart his previously successful career in the UK, may have gained some small satisfaction in a throwaway line from Jockey Club executive director of racing Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges at a media conference on Sunday morning.
EB, as he's popularly known, was hosting an introduction to Hong Kong's newest trainer, 35-year-old Caspar Fownes, and was commenting on the aspect of timing behind the club's decision-making process.
'We have to be mindful that the other two [training licences] were given out in March, and having a trainer assemble a full team with a two-month handicap is virtually mission impossible,' Engelbrecht-Bresges said.
While EB intended the remark to be a plus for young Fownes, who will effectively take over the well-established string of his retiring father Lawrie, it also echoed the view of the Fownes family friend Chapple-Hyam that his Hong Kong failure was not entirely of his own making.
Chapple-Hyam, 40, came to Hong Kong in October 1999 to replace Patrick Biancone, who'd been de-licensed following a rash of positive swabs. The only problem for the affable Brit was that owners in Hong Kong are not used to throwing support at trainers who arrive in October, in any season.
Chapple-Hyam refuses to drag the debate into the public eye but has privately expressed his profound disappointment at a starting position which varied enormously from what he was promised.
