Some years ago, American talk show host Jimmy Kimmel showed a bit of self effacing humour by putting himself in charge of The Handsome Men’s Club.
This was the impetus needed for us to come up with goofiness like The Global Handsome Men’s Racing Club which would always include James Cummings and Adam Hyeronimus.
Just to lighten things up, and with the entertainment awards season upon us, we’ve now gone and created The Hong Kong Handsome Men’s Racing Club.
Who made it into this exclusive Club?
Well, with trainer David Eustace still to arrive in Hong Kong and Sacha Baron Cohen lookalike and former HKJC presenter Andrew Le Jeune, see below, no longer in the city, here’s our constantly evolving Handsome Men’s list.
Douglas Whyte
There’s a new spring in his step these days and he’s gone from dressing up like Beetlejuice to looking like a hit man from the Sopranos with a stable that keeps hitting the target with great regularity.
Pierre Ng
Possibly Hong Kong’s first “idol” horse trainer. Trains winner after winner, dresses impeccably well, wears cool shades, has height, looks rich and with a first name that screams out memories of actor Alain Delon.
Antoine Hamelin
Seems a really really good guy, keeps his head down and does his best with whatever crumbs thrown his way. Just wish that he’d be given more rides with winning chances. The Frenchman certainly can deliver as he showed last Sunday when Natural Storm delivered at odds of over 55-1.
Luke Ferraris, Harry Bentley, Angus Chung and Lyle Hewitson
Known as “fresh meat” by some Chinese racing cougars and “cute boys” by some who go to the Beer Garden at Happy Valley looking for lurve at a budget price and somewhere they can hang out for four hours for the price of a beer and a hotdog.
Andrea Atzeni
To some, he resembles Mr Bean, to others, Rowan Atkinson, and to others Johnny English. But as Andrea Atzeni, 32, the man from Sardinia, has very quickly become one of the most popular and successful of the new wave of jockeys to ride in Hong Kong.
More names will hopefully come on stream.
If not, we’d have to get desperate and invite the mysterious HKJC Executive Director with the code name of The Talented Mister Ripley, but which just might open up a can of wriggly worms.
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The funniest line heard at the Wednesday night racing at Happy Valley last week was uttered by New Zealand race caller Tom Wood: “They’re like seagulls all over a chimp”.
This was after the usual jolly band of fanatical racing photographers swarmed around jockey Keagan De Melo, who had just won the second race of the night, wanting more and more photos of him with his parents who are visiting Hong Kong.
On the same night, some of us were rather concerned that the quite strained vocals of the unknown singer performing the usual hits from twenty years ago with his band at the Beer Garden with shoutouts to The Wanch had injured himself.
We thought that he might have hurt himself trying to “do a Steve Perry” and launching himself in a key much too tight for his pantaloons into the Wanchai club scene anthem “Don’t Stop Believing”.
He was alright. Maybe just a tad winded after possibly passing some jumping jackass gas gas gas gas.
What’s sad is seeing how THE venue bands once wanted to play at has become something so uncool it can barely attract a band of frigid penguins.
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Apparently, odds are being given by a certain racing personality in Sydney as to how much longer Racing Victoria CEO Andrew Jones can keep dodging bullets aimed at him, especially those being actually fired by powerful horse owner Jonathan Munz.
We believe that he will hang in there as not many in 2024 are champing at the bit to run a horse racing club for all the money in China.
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OUR TIPS AS TO WHO WILL SUCCEED WINFRIED ENGELBRECHT-BRESGES…
Sandra Chan
An outsider for the gig though said to be a favourite of the CEO with an uncanny ability to ally herself with those she needs onside.
In some ways, she’s actually not unlike her bon ami and CEO- but much poorer.
Robbie McRobbie
The Chairman of the Hong Kong/China Rugby Union who exits this position in August is keeping his next career move a secret. Being a Hong Kong Belonger, he could easily slot into the HKJC CEO role while old E.B is carried out kicking and screaming from his one-time power base on the sixteenth floor of 1 Sports Road.
Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges
Some say that he has absolutely no plans to leave and will barricade himself in his aircraft hangar of an office, dismantle the elevators and live on the sixteenth floor of 1 Sports Road with sufficient food and baby blue suits and red ties he’s been stocking up on for decades and hang in there for another twenty years.
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WE DO NOT GET IT: THE DUH FACTOR
Those racing and sports radio channels in Australia repeating everything heard in the morning- including tips and interviews about the chances of runners PLUS replaying races almost TWELVE HOURS after these races have been run.
Can’t they plug into something like Spotify and just play twelve hours of music and some interesting podcasts and take a break from continuing to promote gambling 24/7?
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There is no such thing as a “good tipster”. If any good at even tipping a waiter, or having inside information on something going off at around 8-12 to 1, why blab about this and see the odds disappear?
And how many tipsters are actually living la vida loca?
Aren’t many actually…battlers?
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As for those ridiculous anti gambling radio spots that are required to be aired, but which makes everyone in the racing biz in Australia look even more stupid, for how much longer will these trudge along and used as audio wallpaper with the effectiveness of a flea dancing with an elephant?
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Another Duh question: What made the owners syndicate in Hong Kong known as Chain Of Gold purchase a maiden winner at Orange that raced at Happy Valley last week in Class 3 at a rating of 63?
The gelding did better than expected which doesn’t say much for its opposition.
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Par Excellence!
Have merci! She’s only recently arrived in Australia, is staying in Bendigo and globetrotting French rider Mickaelle Michel rode her first winner- and at Flemington, no less- when the Stephen Brown trained Southern Fire saluted at over 80-1 in the 1200 metre Tour d’Horse Trophy with only her third ride in the country.
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