Hong Kong calling with Queensland Derby proven path to Asian riches

Bloodstock agents acting for Hong Kong interests are circling.

If racing’s talent scouts aren’t already working the phones, they will be after the running of the Queensland Derby.

Once an established guide to what lies ahead in the spring, the Queensland Derby is now more likely to reveal a future Hong Kong star instead of a Caulfield Cup or Melbourne Cup winner.

Vow And Declare is a recent exception, winning the 2019 Melbourne Cup four starts after underlining his potential stamina as a luckless runner-up in the Derby.

Still racing as a rising nine-year-old, Vow And Declare sits as a standout Australian-bred stayer over the past two decades having been denied a famous spring double when beaten only by Japan’s Mer De Glace in the Caulfield Cup.

A decade earlier, Shocking also used a runner-up finish in the Queensland Derby as a launch pad for spring glory in the Melbourne Cup.

Somewhere in between, Hong Kong started calling.

It’s a connection that will be strengthened with the Queensland Derby meeting added to the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s World Pool roster for the first time.

As the bid to turn winter promise into Australian spring results of substance got harder, the decision to sell to Hong Kong became easier.

For potential Hong Kong buyers, it’s all about finding the right horse to give it another chance to win a Derby – the Hong Kong version for four-year-olds.

The final leg of a Triple Crown series, the Hong Kong Derby isn’t the richest race in the Asian racing capital, but for owners, it is the most important.

“It’s the premier race,” former Sydney and now Hong Kong-based trainer Mark Newnham told The Straight.

“Any Hong Kong owner, you ask them what race they want to win, it’s the Derby. It’s the number one race here.

“Don’t worry about the Internationals and those races, the Derby is THE race.

“Even just to have a runner is a big deal and if you are buying them a horse ‘do you think he’ll make the Derby’ is one of the most often asked questions.”

The trend for prominent Queensland Derby finishers to relocate to Hong Kong began in earnest after the 2015 runner-up Werther made his way to the John Moore stable.

Werther claimed the Hong Kong Derby en route to horse-of-the-year honours before Moore turned his attention to the 2016 Queensland Derby winner Eagle Way, who ran sixth in the Hong Kong race the following year.

“Don’t worry about the Internationals and those races, the Derby is THE race.” – Mark Newnham

In 2017, Ruthven bowed out of Australian racing with his Derby win in Brisbane while a year later, the winner Dark Dream was one of eight horses out of the race to end up in either Hong Kong or Singapore.

One three-year-old headed over from the 2019 edition but there was increased interest in the 2021 race with four horses purchased.

They included the runner-up Senor Toba, a subsequent Group 3 winner for Caspar Fownes.

The best of two exports from the class of 2022 was another runner-up in Paternal, but he has yet to race, and any interest in 2023 graduates failed to generate a trade.

Newnham, who is just about to complete his first season of training in Hong Kong, said sourcing three-year-olds from Australia and New Zealand had become harder.

An explosion of races, such as the $10 million Golden Eagle for four-year-olds in Sydney and the new $NZ4.5 million NZB Kiwi for three-year-olds in New Zealand, is giving trainers and owners a reason not to sell.

“Those races have made it more difficult … there wasn’t as many options for those horses previously,” he said.

“Before, at the end of their three-year-old season, if they didn’t look like being a Caulfield Cup-type of horse they’d be on the market.”

From this year’s race, one of the early favourites appeals as an obvious target.

Tannhauser would seem to fit the ideal profile for a Hong Kong stable after claiming a Group 1 placing in the JJ Atkins as a two-year-old.

He also had a sprinkling of decent Sydney autumn form and will head into the Derby as a last-start winner of the Rough Habit Plate at Group 3 level.

Tannhauser is owned by a high-powered syndicate formed by Henry Field’s Newgate Stud Farm that likes to turn colts into stallions.

Given that Tannhauser didn’t find winning form as a three-year-old until he was gelded, he will be moved on irrespective of Saturday’s result.

Newgate intends for agents to have a walk-up start, but Newnham says they can expect to pay a premium if Tannhauser gives trainer Chris Waller a fourth Queensland Derby success.

“If you can buy a horse that already has that rating you’re not chasing to get into the (Hong Kong Derby) and get their rating up,” he said.

But he says an owners’ willingness to pay a seven-figure sum doesn’t guarantee success, citing Shadow Hero, a horse he trained to two Group 1 wins in Australia, as an example.

“It’s a tricky one. A horse like Shadow Hero came here with good enough credentials to be a Derby winner but for whatever reason he didn’t settle in,” Newnham said.

“Just because you pay a lot of money for them doesn’t mean they are going to acclimatise to the style of racing here, the firmness of the tracks, the weather.

“There are no rules.”

A true horseman – How Mark Newnham left Australia behind to rediscover his true calling

For the second time in less than a decade, Mark Newnham is building a stable from scratch but he wouldn’t have it any other way as he settles into life as a Hong Kong trainer.

The StraightWarwick Barr