I’ve pretty much heard it all about Zac Purton- everything from how he was an unharnessed and undisciplined young rat bag talent when in Brisbane who preferred to go surfing than ride trackwork to being one of the best race riders in the world. But there’s more to Zac…
In Hong Kong, he was and remains an acquired taste. Something of an enigma.
You either like him or you don’t. It’s very cut and dry.
I belong to the former category as I have seen very different sides to him, perhaps when he didn’t even think I was watching.
Zac and Irish jockey Neil Callan making the time to show their respects by attending the funeral of my great friend and confidante- barrister Kevin Egan- said much.
I remember a horse owner friend agreeing with me that he is a very good rider, but how he didn’t like his face.
Well, that door could swing both ways…
There was then the time a horse trainer mentioned how he would like to use Zac more often, but that he and most of his owners thought he was “unlucky”, and how he had placed on many of his horses, but that riding winners for the stable didn’t happen often enough.
Maybe the horses weren’t good enough?
Knowing what the racing world knows now, it’s both baffling and amusing to think of Zac Purton having to prove himself as a rider to some in Hong Kong racing. But that’s the nature of the beast.
I guess the first time Hong Kong racing really sat up and took notice of Zac Purton was when he rode a horse for champion trainer John Size for the first time in three years. This was for the 2015 Hong Kong Derby.
It had been a very long wait to be given a ride from John Size, the master horseman and trainer whose only competition in Hong Kong when he first arrived here was Ivan Allan and whose Go To jockey was Douglas Whyte, a very good friend of mine at the time.
When that trainer-jockey relationship started to totter and Whyte made the decision to ride the Richard Gibson trained Giant Treasure for powerful owner Pan Sutong for whom he had won the Derby on Akeed Mofeed, there came the offer from Size for Zac Purton to partner Luger in the 2015 Derby.
This was seen by those in the racing game who know good from Okay as some kinda special endorsement of Zac Purton from the anointed one.
With Luger winning this Derby, Zac Purton had suddenly “arrived” though he had been in Hong Kong since 2007 and was the city’s champion jockey.
Though following the racing in Hong Kong sporadically and focused on personal priorities like making Universal and EMI Music the successes they became, and trying to understand those little things like my marriage vows, I would catch snippets of The Zac Attack mowing down everything in his way and finding his own space.
By the time I had created the Happy Wednesday brand for the HKJC, I was more in touch with Zac who always made himself available for interviews etc and was helpful in promoting what we were doing.
In fact, wife Nicole was one of the three original hosts of those brilliant and truly happy evenings.
As a rider, he and Beauty Generation were creating their own unique history as was Zac’s associations with equine talent like Aerovelocity, Exultant, and Time Warp and winning major races overseas like the Caulfield Cup, the Takamatsunomiya Kinen and the Doncaster.
He had also managed to stop the thirteen year reign of the ultimate professional in Douglas Whyte as Champion Hong Kong Jockey and was busy competing with the Magic Man Joao Moreira.
Despite niggling hip injuries and pushing himself through the pain barrier, Zac Purton has succeeded and always knew that Douglas Whyte is a helluva hard act to follow and has kinda changed his game.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown in any career where you have had success.
Success feeds on needing more success often without even knowing it. It’s an invisible and private addiction.
These days, other than being seen riding camels in some exotic location, served by Michelin Star chefs and living the good life with wife Nicole and their two young children, Zac Purton is counting down to the day that’s around the corner when he rings the bell and becomes the winningest jockey in Hong Kong.
And then what?
Being a trainer in Hong Kong?
Really doubt it- but then again…never say never.
Guess this is the question that those of us who have been blessed to achieve more than we set out to achieve are asking ourselves at a time when the world has weathered many storms and has changed us forever and those in our orbit.
Whatever Zac Purton or any of us does next, here’s hoping that it’s something, or many things, that make a positive difference in creating a better world that we leave behind for the next generation to inherit.
We owe this to them. It’s priceless.
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