Zac Purton issues HK premiership challenge

Monday 21 May 2018, 12:26pm

Australian Zac Purton has ridden four winners at Sha Tin to eat into Joao Moreira's lead in the premiership.

Purton, who is in his 10th season in Hong Kong, ended Douglas Whyte's 13-year-dominance of the championship when he won in 2013/14 but has had to settle for second to Moreira since.

His four winners on Sunday put him within four of Moreira who did not ride a winner on the card.

Three of Purton's wins were for trainer Caspar Fownes with the other for John Moore.

"It's a funny feeling. I have ridden four winners and I'm happy with that but I know there were some missed opportunities there too," Purton said.

"Still, four winners eats into Joao's lead and hopefully I can make the most of every chance I get over the next two months."

The two riders are a long way ahead of the field with Moreira on 108, Purton on 104 and nearest rival Karis Teetan on 42.

Purton is also in demand for feature days in Australia and rode In Her Time to win the Group One Galaxy during the Sydney autumn carnival.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »