A Familiar Silks, A New Job
Racegoers who remember the 1990s and 2000s will know the name Weichong Marwing from the saddle, not the sales ring or the stable gate. He was the 1996/97 South African champion jockey, a rider good enough to go and win on the biggest stages in the world — the Hong Kong Derby, the Hong Kong Mile, the Champions & Chater Cup, a Classic Mile and a Champions Mile among them. His most famous afternoon came at Sha Tin in 2006, when he steered Irridescence past the mighty Ouija Board to win the Queen Elizabeth II Cup. A year later he added a UAE Derby aboard Asiatic Boy for Mike de Kock, part of a decade-plus stretch riding across Hong Kong, England, the United States, Dubai, Singapore and Australia for de Kock and other top yards.
Injuries eventually forced the issue. When a neurosurgeon advised him it was time to stop riding, Marwing didn’t walk away from the sport — he took out a trainer’s licence instead, and went to work building a stable from the ground up. It’s a different kind of afternoon now: not a Group 1 in Hong Kong, but a Tuesday handicap at the Vaal, saddling a small string and looking for the same thing he chased as a jockey — a horse crossing the line first.
Gran Canaria’s Fresh Start
Today he got one, courtesy of a four-year-old mare called Gran Canaria. She arrived in Marwing’s yard after time with Justin Snaith, for whom she’d had her moments — a close-up second at Kenilworth in December, then a stretch of tougher form as she moved up in company, including a well-beaten run in the City of Cape Town C Stakes in January. By the time she joined Marwing’s stable, the results had gone the other way: an 18th at the Vaal last time out was about as flat a form line as a horse can show.
None of that discouraged the new trainer. Gran Canaria was freshened up, dropped to 54.5kg — two kilos lighter than her last run — and sent out over 1600m at the Vaal today under Marco V’Rensburg. Given a patient, well-timed ride down the track’s famously long straight, she found the line first, handing Marwing a winner with a horse that had looked like she’d lost her way. It’s exactly the kind of turnaround a small, hands-on stable is built to produce — and exactly the kind of story that keeps a former champion jockey coming back to the far side of the rail.
If you’re following today’s Vaal card, the full racecard and form guide is at cfox.co.za/predictions.
