Yasuda Kinen-winning jockey Brett Prebble may not be allowed to accept an expensive gift promised to him by Bullish Luck's owner Wong Wing-keung. Bullish Luck followed in the footsteps of Fairy King Prawn in winning the Group One race in Tokyo on Sunday, with the victory giving Wong a windfall of close to $15 million in the race stakes money plus a bonus for winning two legs of the Asian Mile Challenge. In the lead-up to Sunday's race, the South China Morning Post reported that Wong had promised Prebble (pictured) the personal use of a yellow Lamborghini car for 12 months as an additional incentive to win the Yasuda Kinen - and Prebble delivered with a brilliant ride. But the Jockey Club's executive director of racing, Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, said yesterday he had been unaware of the offer. 'Nobody has contacted the club to tell us of this idea and I did not see the Post on Sunday morning as I was in Japan, so this is the first I've heard of it,' Engelbrecht-Bresges said on his way to Narita airport for the return trip to Hong Kong. 'Brett is, of course, a club jockey and effectively therefore retained by the Jockey Club, not by Mr Wong, and there are issues to be considered with a present of this kind.' In the past, the Jockey Club has frowned upon its club riders taking presents from grateful owners, though Engelbrecht-Bresges admits that this situation is unique. 'If an owner says to a jockey, 'There is an extra incentive for you to do well', and without the job for this reward being specific, that would not be allowed,' he said. 'This is different - the story was published before the race and it was a reward for a specific horse winning a specific international race on this particular day. It is not a run-of-the-mill occurrence. 'However, we will still have to consider the issues at hand, including how someone outside, including people in areas of law enforcement, might consider this as setting the wrong tone. When everyone is back in Hong Kong, we will sit down with Brett and Mr Wong and explore what is involved.' Engelbrecht-Bresges also poured cold water on a suggestion - made to the Post - that he had been shortlisted for the vacant chief executive's job at Racing Victoria. Racing Victoria, the ruling body of racing in the Australian state of Victoria which hosts the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups and Cox Plate, has been without a chief executive since Robert Nason suddenly left the job in April. 'Anybody can be put on a shortlist without ever being contacted and that is certainly the fact of it in this case,' Engelbrecht-Bresges said. 'Nobody from Racing Victoria has spoken to me about this.'
