Hong Kong great set to join Sydney ranks

Hong Kong trainer John Moore has confirmed plans to return to Australia for the 2020-21 season.

John Moore is looking forward to the challenge of setting up a stable with his brother Gary in Sydney after reaching a compulsory retirement age in Hong Kong.

Moore, 70, is a seven-time leading trainer in Hong Kong and has applied for boxes at Rosehill and is set to join his brother who is already an established trainer at the racetrack.

The Moore brothers are sons of inaugural Australian Racing Hall Of Fame inductee George Moore, one of Australia’s greatest jockeys.

The Hong Kong racing season ends in July and Moore hopes he can return to Australia soon after.

However, Moore is unsure how long it will take for him to get back to Australia with the current COVID-19 protocols in place.

“I’m waiting to see what happens in the next three months with respect to getting myself and my wife into the country and then some of my team from up there as well,” Moore told RSN927.

“It is a new chapter and it is going to be hard, but I have Gary already in place back there and I can slowly blend into the racing scene.

“I can start to set things up the way I am hoping they can be.

“All of sudden being back in Sydney and no doubt having horses all over Australia to race it will be a different ball-game, but I have done what I needed to do up here and I look forward to the challenge.”

Moore left Australia soon after finishing school in the 1970s and is Hong Kong’s longest-serving trainer after he was licensed in 1985.