John and Ivan

[Horny Harry]

Trainer John Size and his nearest rival Ivan Allan, continued on with the premiership dog-fight today as the Hong Kong season draws to a close.
With only two meetings left John Size has a slender lead of two on 57 from Allan on 55.
In the meeting at Sha Tin today, Size trained a double with Koh-I-Noor in race 6 and Score in the last of the day. Allan steadied his momentum with a double as well when Golden Years won the seventh of the day and Chinesesport Glory won the fifth.
By: Jo Adams - Sunday, 9 June 2002
Certainly is shaping up to be an interesting battle betwween these two with only the two meetings left. Go Johny!

[cheesebeast]

Go John!
All eyes on Size
Craig Young / Sydney Morning Herald
June 14 2002
John Size left Australia last year having set new standards for training thoroughbreds, and the workaholic has continued the trend in Hong Kong. The horseman is a genius.
"John Size is one of those trainers that breaks the mould. He is on a different paradigm," was the comment from respected English racing journalist and punter Lawrence Wadey.
Wadey has spent 17 years reporting on racing in Europe and Hong Kong, where for 12 of the past 13 years he was racing editor of The South China Morning Post.
"He has taken the game of training to a new level," Wadey said of Size. "I suppose it is a bit like Tiger Woods in golf. He is now the yardstick by which trainers are judged in Hong Kong and he has done it in 12 months. He is a phenomenon."
Barring an upset not dissimilar to France failing to score a goal in the World Cup, Size will be crowned champion trainer in Hong Kong on Sunday. From freshman to celebrated professor in one racing season.
"I don't know what to say. It hasn't come to an end," Size told The Form on Thursday.
"I'm just doing the same job, just in a different place. My attitude and my approach to horses has remained constant, religious, otherwise it is a waste of time me being here."
The true worth of Size's remarkable season is found in the statistics. Size has had 281 starters for 57 wins, two ahead of former champion trainer Ivan Allan, whose starters for the season number 467. Size horses have won $HK48,509,700 ($10,925,600) in prizemoney.
Size started with 16 horses but has now reached the legal limit of 60.
"There are 1200 horses in Hong Kong and John could be training 1000 of them," jockey Shane Dye said on Thursday.
"Everyone is offering him horses to train. There hasn't been one horse in his stable that hasn't improved.
"To put it in perspective, he has taken horses, considered maidens in Australia, from other trainers here and got them to win Listed or Group races.
"He hasn't just done it with one horse but with them all. I won a $HK2m race on Sunday for him with a horse that hadn't won a race for three years. It had broken down and was going to be retired."
Dye, second on the jockeys' table with 63 wins for the season, has ridden the bulk of Size's winners and said: "He's an absolute genius."
Size has turned the training scene upside down. The swimming of horses has doubled as rivals follow the lead, as they have done with Size's trackwork program, which contains few strenuous gallops.
Same goes for the owner/trainer long lunches and late-night dinners, which are customary in Hong Kong.
"A lot of trainers say we have to have very good contact with owners, we have to have a lot of lunches and dinners but John has proven it is not necessary," said the Hong Kong Jockey Club's director of racing, Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges. "John has proven Hong Kong owners appreciate success."
Wadey agrees, adding that his unprecedented first-season success has been due in large part to Size "working his bollocks off".
"If John Size was out for lunch it would be a packed lunch in the stables. He never leaves the yard. He is always working real hard," Wadey said, but added: "I've never spoken to him.
"He seems to have a very good rapport with his staff. He has developed a team of locals that seem to love him. They give the impression they'd walk over hot coals for him."
In regard to the eating scene, Size said: "I don't do much of that. I try to avoid it if I possibly can. I'm certainly not rude to my owners.
"I spend most of my time at the stables and I explain that to them, saying, `That's my job, that's why the horses win - don't get me out too often or I'll just train losers'."
Size is up every morning at 3o'clock and still rides plenty of trackwork, which is all but unheard of for a Hong Kong trainer, while conditioning the staff has been as time-consuming as the horses.
"My staff certainly aren't used to my way of doing things so I've got to keep a pretty close eye on what's happening - it's pretty intense on my part," Size said.
An intensity unmatched in Hong Kong, and just one reason for HKJC chief steward John Schreck breaking with tradition.
"Over the years I have resisted as much as possible commenting about a licensed person, although what I would say in relation to Mr Size is that his achievements have been nothing short of outstanding," Schreck said.
"They have been brought about primarily through hard work. Most people would say genius is 99 per cent hard work.
"I think that what Mr Size has done reflects greatly on Australian racing people, for which I'm grateful

[hobbes]

Tuesday, June 18, 2002
RACING SEASON REVIEW Size arrives with all guns blazing
'He is one of the greatest success stories ever in Hong Kong racing,' says Engelbrecht-Bresges
HELLO, GOODBYE by NICK PULFORD
John Size ensured that the puns involving his name were quickly exhausted as he made most of the headlines in a sensational debut season which saw him clinch the trainers' championship even before the first anniversary of his official start date. The Australian became the punters' pal with a strike-rate of 19.9 per cent and left professionals and public alike in awe of his achievements, which also saw Electronic Unicorn deliver fully on his potential to land Horse of the Year honours.
"John Size is one of the greatest success stories ever in Hong Kong racing and Hong Kong can be proud to have added another world-class trainer to the ranks here," said Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, the Jockey Club's director of racing. "You could see how much the fans appreciate him when he was presented with his trophy on the final day of the season."
Manfred Man Ka-leung, the other new trainer, did not make the same waves as Size but steered a steady course to end up with a respectable 18 winners. The pair's success justified the Jockey Club's strict performance criteria, which had seen three trainers lose their licences at the end of last season to make way for Size and Man, and left next season's newcomers Sean Woods and Dennis Yip Chor-hong with a hard act to follow.
On the jockey front, Hong Kong discovered a new star in Olivier Doleuze, just as the great Basil Marcus bade a fond farewell to the stage he dominated for the best part of a decade. Doleuze burst on to the scene in late December, scoring a double on Boxing Day to open a streak that carried him to 26 winners from 141 rides at a strike-rate of 18.4 per cent.
The flamboyant Frenchman established himself as a favourite with the fans, not least for his trademark winning salute as he stood up in the irons, a practice which earned him a rebuke from the Hong Kong stewards on one occasion and almost cost him a race in Macau on Derby Day.
Doleuze headed back to France after the Hong Kong Derby, surely soon to return, while Marcus rode into the sunset the same day. Unfortunately, there was no fairytale ending for the seven-times champion as he finished out of the big-race places on Super Molly.
Other long-serving riders to bow out were Steven King, who rode 97 winners in Hong Kong over an eight-year period, and Wendyll Woods, whose split with Lawrie Fownes ended a near 20-year love affair with Hong Kong racing stretching back to his apprentice days.
The only trainer to leave was Wong Tang-ping, who reached the retirement age of 65 after a 50-year career with the Jockey Club. The highly respected trainer, best known for 1980s star Co-Tack, had 23 winners in his final season, making a grand total of 567 in his 21 years with a licence.
Tony Cruz, who shared in many of Co-Tack's wins, made a surprise return to the saddle, almost six years after retiring to take up training. The magic was still there, however, as he beat fellow great Lester Piggott to win the Legends race at Flemington in Australia.
While Cruz and stable jockey Felix Coetzee enjoyed a third highly successful season together, none of the other three stable retainers managed to survive intact. Outgoing champion trainer Brian Kan Ping-chee and Gerald Mosse scored Group wins with Industrial Pioneer and Red Pepper but split at the end of the season, along with the uncle-nephew team of Fownes and Woods. Alex Wong Siu-tan's link with Australian rider Stephen Baster was more shortlived, ending in October after a losing run of 79 for the stable.
The most notable horse retirement was Oriental Express, who bowed out at the age of eight after finishing unplaced in the Hong Kong Vase. The grey won the Derby, Queen Elizabeth II Cup and two Champions & Chater Cups for owner Larry Yung Chi-kin, who found a top-class replacement in Derby winner Olympic Express.