Romps to record eight winners in a day

Joao Moreira powered to eight wins from 10 rides on an 11-race card at Sha Tin on Sunday to smash a Hong Kong horse racing record.

The current Hong Kong champion jockey flew past the post first on Easy Touch, Dashing Dart, Mr Stunning, Victor Emperor, Cool And Neat, Beat The Clock, Mighty Maverick and Prawn Baba to beat the old record of six winners.

It came close to Eddie Castro's American record of nine wins in a day, set in Florida in 2005, and recalled Frankie Dettori's feat of riding all seven winners at Ascot on September 28, 1996.

But incredibly, it was not the first time Moreira has had so many winners on the same day.

He also achieved the feat at Singapore's Kranji racecourse in September 2013 when he won on eight of nine rides.

"But I think it is even harder to do in Hong Kong," Moreira was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post newspaper.

"I was so pumped," he added of the moment he steered his eighth winner, Prawn Baba, to victory. 

"My wife was out on the balcony and screaming out to me, so I screamed back. I so wanted to share that moment with her. You can't ever expect these things, I have no words to describe it."

Jockeys had won six races in a day in the southern Chinese semi-autonomous city on four previous occasions, with Moreira achieving the feat twice at Sha Tin in 2015. The others were Brett Pebble at Happy Valley in 2010 and Douglas Whyte at Sha Tin in 2013.

Castro won nine races in a day at Florida's Calder race track in June 2005, in what is believed to be a world record.

Source: AFP