Happy Lucky Dragon Win | Hong Kong racing’s extended season stretches into summer but John Size patience remains

One of the side effects of the season stretching inexorably into summer, other than unsightly underarm sweat patches on shirts and even more varieties of John Moore safari suits, is skewed statistics and the record books being rewritten simply by virtue of an extended schedule.

At some stage during the next two meetings trainer John Size will probably equal, if not pass, the all-time record of 91 wins in a season, before the focus, for media at least, will be his ‘quest’ for what would have once been considered an inconceivable 100 winners.

Size needs 11 wins from the next eight meetings to get to the century, and he probably could do it easily, if he wanted to – the season going from 83 to 88 meetings takes care of that – but whether he wants to or not is a moot point.

More on Size’s individual accomplishments, and motivation, later, but regardless of whether he cracks triple figures or not, win total alone won’t make it the best season of all-time.

Just like hard and fast tracks, not horses, break track records, a longer season ­– more meetings and races – mean that old records are now essentially rendered meaningless, at least when it comes to simple comparisons.

This may be Size’s greatest ever season, and it is a tremendous achievement, no doubt, but it is Tony Cruz’s 2004-05 tour de force that still stands the test of time as best ever.