Kingscote, Crawford new additions to HK ranks in 2025-26

New Paper

01-07-2025

British jockey Richard Kingscote and South African trainer Brett Crawford are the two new faces to join the roster in the upcoming Hong Kong 2025-26 season.
Kingscote is licensed to ride from July 17, 2025 to Feb 17, 2026, while Crawford has been licensed for the whole 2025-26 season.
Kingscote enjoyed success when he booted home four winners - including a treble at Sha Tin on March 26 - over 10 meetings at his short-term stint in Hong Kong from Feb 19 to April 2.
The 38-year-old jockey boasts five Group 1 race wins, with the 2022 Epsom Derby (2,400m) aboard Desert Crown his career highlight. His first Group 1 triumph came in the Irish St Leger (2,800m) on Brown Panther in 2014, before he went on to score with Havana Grey in the 2018 Flying Five Stakes (1,000m), and Bay Bridge in the 2022 Champion Stakes (2,000m).
Currently based in the UK, Kingscote won his latest Group 1 race aboard the Harry Eustace-trained Time For Sandals in the Commonwealth Cup (1,200m) at Royal Ascot on June 20.
Since his debut in 2004, he has now tallied 1,612 wins across the UK, Hong Kong, Australia, Ireland, United Arab Emirates, Japan, France, Bahrain and Turkey. Kingscote goes to scale at 54kg.
All jockeys have been granted a full-season licence except for Kingscote, Keagan de Melo and James Orman, whose terms last until Feb 17.
A winner of over 1,400 races in South Africa, Crawford, 53, who was born in Zimbabwe, will begin training in Hong Kong on July 17, a day after the current season ends.
Training with his son James on the Western Cape, Crawford senior has amassed 38 Group 1 wins, including two Durban July's (2,200m) with Winchester Mansion in 2023 and Oriental Charm in 2024, as well as three The Met's (2,000m) in Cape Town with Angus (2003), Futura (2015) and Whisky Baron (2017).
However, three jockeys and one trainer will also exit the scene.
French jockey Antoine Hamelin will return to France, while Australian jockey Ben Thompson will head back to Brisbane for good at the end of the season.
In his five years of riding in Hong Kong, Hamelin has clocked 109 wins, albeit with only 10 winners this season. His latest success came atop Rising From Ashes at Sha Tin on June 28.
Thompson, who rode at Kranji in 2018-2019, winning 30 races, netted 15 wins in Hong Kong, eight of them in the current term.
Just like Hamelin, Thompson has struggled to get a win since his last aboard Fallon on April 23. He will wrap up his 18-month stint at the season's last meeting at Happy Valley on July 16.
Local jockeys were not spared lean times either, with Alfred Chan even being forced into retirement at 31. In 10 rides this season, he won only one race on Super Legends, taking his six-year-old career tally to 66 wins.
Veteran Hong Kong trainer Benno Yung will call it quits after 12 years of training. The 66-year-old - who began his journey in racing as an apprentice jockey in the 1970s - retires after being licensed as a trainer since 2013-14.
He has trained 359 winners, including stable stars like the gigantic grey Pingwu Spark, who finished third to Beauty Only in the 2018 Group 2 Chairman's Trophy (1,600m) and Romantic Touch, who ran third to Luger in the 2015 Hong Kong Derby (2,000m).
However, Yung probably scored his biggest win, over cancer in 2023. He made a successful recovery from acute myeloid leukaemia and returned to training.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Jockey Club's licensing committee has also confirmed that trainer Tony Cruz, 68, is eligible for an extension beyond the end of the 2026-27 season, during which he will turn 70, until the conclusion of the 2029-30 season, "provided he continues to satisfy the benchmarks set down by the club".
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