Tough training, but life-changing rewards

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For 44 years, the Hong Kong Jockey Club has been cultivating great jockeys from its Apprentice Jockeys’ School. Be it highly respected jockey and trainer Tony Cruz or champion trainer Dennis Yip Chor-hong, some of the school’s famous graduates, being an apprentice means learning from scratch. School life might be tough, but if you’re determined to excel, the Club offers you the best possible training to get on the winning saddles.

That is the experience of 22-year-old apprentice jockey Jack Wong as he looks back at his life-enriching transformation over the past seven years. “From an ordinary Form 4 school student to a winning jockey gaining notoriety in the mass media, horse racing has indeed changed my life,” he says.

Despite having less than 1% of the world’s racehorses in training, the Club has become recognised as a global leader in the sport, with one in four of the World’s Top 25 races taking place in the city. The opportunity this offers apprentices to learn from and ride with the very best is self-evident.

Enrolled in the Apprentice Jockeys’ School back in 2009, Wong underwent hours of training which required him to start each day at 4:00 am. Apart from needing to follow this disciplined schedule, his personal physique put obstacles in his way, “My fitness was inferior to others at the beginning. I had to spend extra time in the gym. I remember once my arms got so numb after prolonged training that I could not even stretch them out.”