HK trainers' title in the balance on New Year's Day

The HK trainers championship is moving into phase two on New Year's Day when the contenders start to separate from the pretenders.

Much has been discussed about whether a trainer with title aspirations even wants to be in front this early in the season but, like many contests, history shows a lead to be a plus on balance.

As 2026 opens, Caspar Fownes will lead by one win over Mark Newnham with one more win back to Danny Shum and a further three to David Hayes. Then there's a 5-win break to Manfred Man, another two to Cody Mo and Frankie Lor.

There has been some to and fro at the top and, at different times in the first 300 races this season, and

the contest has been led by Jamie Richards, Hayes, Shum, Fownes and Newnham

but most often by either Newnham, in his third HK season, or the 4-time champion Fownes.

When asked about his championship prospects along the way, Newnham himself has deflected optimism, pointing out that the championship in recent years has not been won by the leader.

Two seasons ago, Pierre Ng had even led by as many as 16 wins at one stage - a big lead in a contest often won with around 70 victories - before coming up a win short of Francis Lui in the final reckoning.

So, as an observation in specific years, Newnham isn't wrong but a longer look at the HK trainers championship certainly points to the likely title winner as one of the leaders at this point of the season.

Even going back to the most famous title win by John Size in his rookie year, the Australian handler was the last trainer of the season to have a runner, had his first win in early October and did not hit the top until March 30.

However, he had been within 13 of the leader by Hong Kong International Day in December and within eight of the lead by January 1.

That isn't to say that big deficits have not been overcome.

In the past 20 years, Fownes gave the biggest New Year's Day start of any championship winner, trailing by 19 wins behind the leader Size in 2013-14 before levelling up late in the competition.

The lead seesawed even on the last day of the season before both trainers finished on 62 wins each.

In a first for HK racing, where John Moore and David Hill had been declared co-champions after the only other dead-heat result 21 years earlier, the Jockey Club declared Fownes the winner on a countback of second placings.

Fownes had also overcame a 12-win New Year's Day deficit in 2008-09 when he pipped Moore in the championship at season's end.

But, if we look at the 20 leaders on January 1, 11 of them arrived at the winning post in front, albeit with Size being dropped to second on that controversial countback.

That still translates to a strike rate 50 % without Size and very few trainers to have led at dawn on January 1 in any season have not been involved in the fight at the finish.

The standout in that negative sense was Pierre Ng last season, who had 26 victories and led by 11 on January 1, but managed just 14 more wins for the rest of the term and trailed home in the bottom half of the championship.

Just four championship winners have come from further than seven wins off the lead on January 1, and only six have been more than three off the front.

All of which suggests that there is huge chance that the four players in the championship this season ar Fownes, Newnham, Hayes and Shum.

While all the main contenders are of interest, Shum is one of the most interesting.

Since his training debut in 2003-04, Shum has a lengthy form history of hitting the ground running to be one of the leaders in the early months of the season before losing momentum but still maintaining enough consistency to remain in the top ten.

His best finish is second to Size ten years ago but, this season, Shum has maintained his momentum longer than usual. He has even exceeded Fownes as the most successful trainer in recent weeks, with 14 wins from his last 100 runners.

Others with high expectations through the middle of the season are Size, Lui and sophomore handler David Eustace, but all of them are double digits off the front, with more than a third of the season already completed and plenty to do.

The key for all of the contenders will be the performances of new, mostly-unraced horses as they reach the track in the coming weeks to make their debuts.

Size has built his career - and 13 championships - on these horses, often producing multiple new young horses, starting their careers in Class 4 and capable of a string of wins before the handicap system catches up with them in Class 3 or Class 2 by the end of the season.

But, although renowned as a slow starter, this will be the biggest head-start he has given at this stage of the campaign to still be successful.