Warcat and Gem give trainer chance to relive glory days as HK jockey champ
Gary Moore will complete yet another career ambition when he takes two horses to Sha Tin on Sunday in his new capacity as Macau's reigning champion trainer, and a victory would make it a dream return.
Moore last rode in Hong Kong in the 1997 Queen Elizabeth II Cup. Now he's back for the second round of the Hong Kong-Macau interport races, and will saddle up Warcat (Peter Ho Wah-leun) and Gem of Unionlucky (Wayne Smith) in the $2.3 million race.
Moore was the golden child of Hong Kong racing, the younger son of leading trainer George Moore. Just after racing went professional in the early 1970s, Moore not only reached the top of the riding tree but became the premier jockey seven times. He was the most successful expatriate jockey, setting a record of 694 wins that stood until Douglas Whyte whooshed by it at the back end of last season.
And his clashes with the other champion jockey of the era, Tony Cruz, were the stuff of legends. Their rivalry saw premiership honours going Cruz's way one year, Moore's the next, in a see-sawing joust that lasted the best part of a decade. The final score was Moore seven premierships, Cruz six, though Cruz's ultimate total of 937 wins is still a standard no other jockey has matched.
'Tony and I were very good friends off the track but out there, on the turf, we were fierce competitors,' Moore recalled yesterday. 'In one race, I had Tony in a pocket and I didn't want him getting out cheaply and even though my horse was beaten, I didn't want to give him an inch.
'The stewards took a dim view of it and suspended me because, in my enthusiasm, I had my left elbow right up and going a bit over the top. But that's how serious the competition was between us.'
