Jockey Matthew Poon will add a touch of international flavour to the Group 1 Doomben Cup on May 24, having been granted permission by the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) to ride overseas.
The HKJC media release posted today reads: ‘Permission has been granted for Jockey Matthew M F Poon to be absent from Hong Kong in order to partner Klondike in the Doomben Cup (Group 1) which is to be conducted on Saturday, 24 May 2025 at Doomben Racecourse, Australia. Jockey Poon will return to Hong Kong immediately following the relevant race-meeting to fulfil his riding engagements in Hong Kong.’
Poon joined the official Hong Kong race-riding ranks in 2017, after completing an educational spell in Australia with leading South Australian trainer Richard Jolly where he was something of a success story, riding 117 winners and also being crowned South Australia Champion Apprentice jockey in the 2015/16 season.
Poon landed the biggest win of his riding career to date at the end of March when he saluted aboard the Ricky Yiu trained Straight Arron in the HK$5.35 million G2 Chairman’s Trophy at Dha Tin.
He lies in seventh place on the Hong Kong Jockeys Championship and his current tally of thirty-two winners has him within touching distance of going on to set a new personal best mark for the season. His best to date has been thirty-seven winners.
Poon’s Doomben Cup ride, Klondike, is a lightly raced five-year-old who won the Group 3 Prix De Reux at Deauville in France last August when in the care of trainer William Haggas.
The son of Galileo has since been transferred to the John O’Shea and Tom Charlton training partnership for whom he has had one start, a first-up run, after being away from race action for seven months (and changing countries), in which he finished unplaced in the JRA Plate over 1800m.
He will enjoy the extra distance in the Doomben Cup … the 2000m trip (in fact, he will probably want it further) … and he should strip a fitter horse with that first-up run behind him.
