Three-time Hong Kong Horse of the Year Golden Sixty has millions of fans around the world, but possibly none bigger than American photographer Alex Evers.

In this week’s Tongue Tie Off, Eclipse Award winner Evers talks about how the Jockey Club scouted him, the way in which Derek Leung Ka-chun’s only Group One victory transformed his international career, and of course, the special connection he feels to Golden Sixty.

What was your introduction to racing?

My parents would go to work, and they’d drop me at my grandfather’s house. He’d go to the racetrack every day, and I’d go with him when I was three or four. I’d get a $2 bet in every race, and he’d let me keep 10 per cent of whatever I won, as long as I didn’t tell Grandma. My earliest racing memories are of Alysheba winning the 1987 Kentucky Derby, then a couple of years later seeing Sunday Silence run in person and go for the Triple Crown – he won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes but lost the Belmont Stakes. It cemented my love of racing.

All I wanted to do was be a jockey, but I got too big. I wanted to be involved in racing in any capacity, so I went to the University of Arizona because it had a racetrack programme. I lasted 21 days. I’d been drawing horses all of my life – going to the racetrack and sketching – then I picked up a camera because I figured it’d be easier than drawing. My photography career went from there.

Who taught you to take pictures?

I went to photography school for one month before I got into an argument with the dean after I shot my first Kentucky Derby. He said the school owned the rights to my pictures. I said, ‘You don’t because I don’t go to your school any more’. That was the end of my schooling. Pretty much everything I’ve learned about photography I’ve either taught myself or picked up from working with my mentor.

Photography was my passport into racing. I’d no way to get into the sport other than taking pictures. I’d exhausted all other options. I’d nothing to fall back on, so I’m fortunate it’s all worked out.

How did you get on the Jockey Club’s radar?

In August 2017, I attended the first Equestricon, a racing convention at Saratoga Springs. Pat Cummings was working for the Jockey Club at the time. He’d been at this new event, walked into the photography panel discussion and heard me speak. Afterwards, we bumped into each other, and he said, ‘You should come to Hong Kong.’ I took some unpaid leave from my job and used my airline credits from my recent wedding to get flights to and from Hong Kong.

It was the Hong Kong International Races [HKIR] meeting in December 2017. I had a plan of all the stuff I wanted to do, but my batteries were dying, and my cameras were shorting because the wireless signals were mixing. I’d come all this way, and my shoot was going horrendously. I was a mental mess.

Then, Beauty Generation won the Hong Kong Mile. Derek Leung got off the horse, grabbed him by his blinkers and kissed him. I was right there, shooting with a tight lens. I posted my shot on Twitter – now X – and Pat said, ‘Oh, my god! It’s an amazing photo. We’d love to buy it’. The Jockey Club bought a handful of frames from my HKIR shoot and invited me to the Classic Series later that season. I’ve been coming to Hong Kong ever since.

Sunday Silence is your favourite horse of all time, but who’s your favourite active one?

Golden Sixty, no doubt. My connection to him goes way deeper than just a horse on the racetrack. He’d been sick after winning the 2020 Hong Kong Classic Mile, and everyone said he couldn’t win the Classic Cup (1,800m), but he got a split between Champion’s Way and More Than This and unleashed an incredible run. I’ve got a picture of Ryan Moore tipping his cap to Vincent Ho Chak-yiu after the race. Then, because of Covid, I had to watch him win the Derby from home. I was excited for Vincent and the horse’s connections, but I was heartbroken not to be there.

I didn’t think I’d make it back to Hong Kong, but I did for last year’s HKIR, albeit with heaps of Covid protocols. One morning at trackwork, California Spangle walked past me. I stopped shooting. He snapped his head around and looked into my soul. At that moment, I knew California Spangle would win the Group One Hong Kong Mile, not Golden Sixty. When that’s what played out, I hadn’t felt that disappointed about a race result since Alysheba lost to Ferdinand by a nose in the 1987 Group One Breeders’ Cup Classic (2,000m). I went to Golden Sixty’s barn after the Mile to set up some cameras, and he was squealing. He was so annoyed he’d lost.

Seven weeks later, it was the Group One Stewards’ Cup (1,600m) – the eagerly awaited rematch between Golden Sixty and California Spangle, with Group One Hong Kong Cup (2,000m) hero Romantic Warrior added to the mix for an extra touch of spice. Golden Sixty saw California Spangle in the saddling enclosure next to him. His ears pinned back. He started losing it. He kicked. He snorted. I’d never seen a horse behave like he was behaving. I walked out with Vincent. I told him, ‘There’s no way that horse is ever beating your horse ever again’.

Finally, what are your favourite frames?

Maybe it’s recency bias, but this year, I made a shot of Vincent and Golden Sixty after they’d beaten Karis Teetan and Romantic Warrior in the Group One Hong Kong Gold Cup (2,000m). Vincent rarely shows emotion, but he pumped his fists in the air, and Golden Sixty flicked his head into my camera. I screwed up the exposure, but the picture is in the moment. It’s pretty special.

Then, on Champions Day, I snapped a really cool remote, wide-angled image of Vincent and Golden Sixty winning the Group One Champions Mile from Beauty Joy and California Spangle, with the Sha Tin grandstand full of people and several high-rise towers in the background.