Dougie Whyte retains International crown.

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Happy Valley: Cathay Pacific International Jockeys' Challenge

EIGHT-TIME Hong Kong champion Doug Whyte retained his Cathay Pacific International Jockeys' Challenge title at Happy Valley on Wednesday night, even though he failed to win any of the three races round the track's notoriously tight turns on which the points-based title is based.

The UK team of Jamie Spencer and Neil Callan barely landed a blow behind the South African star.

Spencer was beaten only narrowly into third place in the best finish of the night, when Christophe Lemaire took the final leg on the Andreas Schutz-trained Kenobe, who beat Rewarding Star and Mainland Shuttle over an extended 1m.

All three races involved in the series were low-grade handicaps, wherein consistency was the key for Whyte.

He finished second in all three legs, having earlier been beaten by the New York-based Panamanian Cornelio Velasquez, who rode Super Genki, in the first leg, and by the multiple German champion Andrasch Starke on Ever King in the second.

Velasquez is in Hong Kong to ride the strongly fancied Kip Deville in Sunday's Hong Kong Mile and was having his first-ever experience of riding around Happy Valley.

Lemaire rides the 1,000 Guineas winner Natagora in the same race.

Whyte, who has won the title three times overall, said: "You've got to earn the points and get good runs with all the horses. It was down to them, and they helped me do it. It's imperative you get one or two decent rides and one or two decent alleys."

Callan failed to make the frame but enjoyed himself nonetheless. "It was a fantastic experience," he said.

"It's great to be invited to ride with the best jockeys in the world and you don't get to ride on a track like this every day.

"I'd say Chester is the nearest, but this is probably even tighter, especially the last 700 metres, which are downhill, then uphill into a sharpish bend and a short straight."




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