At the height of their rivalry as jockeys, Zac and Purton and Douglas Whyte took to trash talking and finger pointing at each other in races and even Whyte’s retirement and switch to training five years ago didn’t end their contest.
In fact, it could be said that Whyte, the Durban Demon, has been key to extending Purton’s career, certainly in Hong Kong, but even that looks to have reached the finish this season.
Purton is not one of those top jockeys we see more and more of, continuing to ride well into their fifties at a high level, even though there has been no let-up in the powerful tides of his success on the track.
Many years ago, a doctor warned him that, by the time he was 40, the wasting and physical stress demanded of him in his riding career would leave him with the body of a 60-year-old. In January, Purton turns 42, and the signs have been there for a several seasons that niggling injuries persist. You can see it in his gait as he walks to the inevitable trophy presentations and, behind the scenes, the management and treatment of Purton’s physical issues is at least as frantic as any hard-fought finish.
After the well-publicised struggles he, and other riders, had to maintain their off track training and treatment effectively during COVID, Purton has been happier with life since the pandemic finished, adding a season win record to his long list of achievements.
Jockeys and boxers are difficult to retire but 2024-25 might well be the end for Purton's stellar career as he takes aim at the final realistic record that he wants.
Last season’s championship took Purton to seven titles, past Tony Cruz’s six wins and joining Gary Moore in second on the all-time list. He should add another this campaign but Whyte’s towering tally of 13 looks too far away.
But the Whyte record Purton wants to erase, and the record that has continued to incentivise the Australian even after he saw off Joao Moreira’s rivalry, is the all-time win tally of 1,813 victories.
Purton starts the new season on 1,740, with the likelihood that he will catch Whyte’s total by February, or March at the latest.
And that looks like that, for what appears to be his last season as a rider.
Is Purton a walkover for the title?
Well, given that the only change to last season’s personnel in the jockeys’ room is the addition of the new 10-pound claimer, Britney Wong, the answer is yes.
In my view, Purton’s riding peaked a couple of seasons ago and he has been giving off the same sort of vibes as Whyte in the final season or two of his 13-year reign.
If, for example, James McDonald chose this season to join the roster on a full time basis, I believe he would take Purton’s title from him, the way Purton took Whyte's 10 years ago. But McDonald has a target of his own in Australia – Damien Oliver’s leading Group One-winning tally of all time – and he looks a couple of years away from being a fixture in Hong Kong, though I would expect we will continue to see him on regular fly-in assignments and perhaps another mid-season cameo like we saw last term.
If there are any dangers to Purton, other than injury, then the likes of Hugh Bowman, Karis Teetan and Vincent Ho come into the conversation but, to be even be a serious player, a Purton rival needs to win 100 races, and it has been a long time since any rider won the title without a strike rate in the high teens.
In fact, Purton’s 19 % strike rate last season was the lowest for a champion rider since his first title in 2014, when his 17.5 % win rate was enough to beat Joao Moreira, who struck at better than 20 % but didn’t have enough rides after missing more than a third of the season due to a late start and frequent suspensions.
Ho missed plenty of last season with injury and managed only 41 wins. He did win 96 races two seasons back but that was a serious spike in his 14-year career, with the next best 67 in 2019-2020.
After 11 seasons in Hong Kong, Teetan has frequently been in the top three but, again, his peak tally was 93 in 2019-2020, and 86 wins last term is a great year but not great enough to threaten for the title.
Which leaves Bowman. He won 69 races last season in a campaign punctuated by suspension and injury but did manage a 15% strike rate and his early form had promised to make a race of it with Purton.
From Bowman’s first 89 rides in 2023-2024, he had landed 20 wins (almost 22.5 % strike rate), leading Purton on both wins and win rate after the first six weeks of the campaign.
But his pace was slowed by two suspensions, at Happy Valley and a fly-in, fly-out trip to Sydney, then a fall from Tuchel on November 11 that sidelined him until late December.
By the time Bowman was back riding regularly, he was still on 21 wins and Purton had shot out to 47 and it was all over.
Any hope of a serious competition for the title this season needs someone, and most likely Bowman, to maintain the sort of success rate he produced in that early part of last season but for the most part, when he was riding consistently, his rate was more like 13 % .
Further down the list, Andrea Atzeni made a good impression returning to Hong Kong a decade after his first taste of it as a young jockey. He was more assertive in style this time around and the results showed, so perhaps he can build on his 48 wins but that’s a long way from being a threat. Lyle Hewitson has also laid down a good foundation in the past two season, with 90 wins, but has to find a lot more yet to be a player.
So the season ahead in the jockeys’ room largely promises more of the same but, with the imminent retirement of the dominant force Purton, the view beyond that is unclear.
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