(Source: Living In Mosman)

We met Tommy Berry for the first time last weekend at a party and believe he has a head start over many who have come to Hong Kong with delusions of grandeur, being legends in their own lunchtime and left licking their wounds.

(Source Wp Clipart)

The experience, the competitiveness, obtaining rides, the need for positive PR, Tommy Berry will learn all this in time- perhaps much quicker than the doubters in Oz think.

(Source: All Posters Images)

Is he too young or too inexperienced to ride in Hong Hong?

This type of thinking is stupid and stunted. Its like not booking a new music artist with great potential because no one’s heard of them.

Even U2, Coldplay, the Stones, the Beatles, Bruno Mars were once new and unknown.

What if no one saw their potential, took a chance and booked them?

(Source: Jambase)

How old and experienced must Tommy Berry be before being “entitled” to ride in Hong Kong?

As old as Methuselah? As experienced as Grant Cooksely, Robert Thompson and Felix Coetzee- combined?

(Source: Twain Quotes)

One great asset Berry has on his side is that he presents himself very well- and doesn’t behave like a yob and dress like a dag.

Sure, it sounds superficial, but so are many Hong Kong owners and just as you are what you eat, you are judged off the track where most of the business is done by how you present yourself at those seemingly never-ending lunch meetings in five-star restaurants.

(Source: Magic Monkey Boy)

Many owners in Hong Kong- and their usual posse of sycophantic friends who can easily sway thinking- view jockeys as celebrities- as Rock stars- just as does the local racing media.

This is a huge point of differentiation to the racing worlds of Australia and Hong Kong: The need to have Star Quality, something certainly not lost on Douglas Whyte.

Whyte hasn’t won twelve consecutive jockey premiership through only his magnificent performances on the track.

(Source: HKJC)

He has worked at being the consummate professional and working on how he is perceived off the track through how he dresses, where he dines, knowing who is who and being approachable.

Gerard Mosse, Olivier Doleuze, Christophe Soumillon, Umberto Rispoli, and every European jockey who has ridden here have charmed the pantaloons of everyone they have met- they are larger than life characters- and which is what makes The Swordsman the weapon of mass attention that he is along with still being one of the greatest Big Race jockeys in the world.

(Source: Guardian)

At Happy Valley last night, he also proved that when it suits him, he is one of the best in Hong Kong. His ride in the last race was brilliant where a few other riders looked like cowboys looking for the McOK Corral.

(Source: Apple Daily)

Add, trainers Richard Gibson, Caspar Fownes, and jockeys Brett Prebble and Zac Purton to this list while John Moore and John Size are doing fine the way they are- as is trainer Andy WT Leung, the Elton John of Hong Kong racing.

(Source: Apple Daily)

Tommy Berry will join this former group and watching the way he works a room, he has been taught well and knows what to say and how to say it.

(Source: Global Nerdy)

Robotic? Fake? Not really. It’s to do with upbringing and, no doubt, learning from the Lady GaiGai School of Public Relations.

(Source: Punters Paradise)

As a jockey, Tommy Berry has his god-given talents which very many jockeys don’t have and never will. That’s just a fact of life and why life serves up battlers.

(Source: The Australian)

He and twin brother Nathan have grown up fast and is now fine-tuning the rough edges and, at the same time, is understanding that Egoiste is not the name of a horse and that Sam The Tailor, no matter what a sterling job he does clothing The Three Amigos who host the Masterpiece Theatre production that is Racing To Win, might not be for him.

(Source: Kinoc Cinema)

Tommy Berry will be Berry fine in Hong Kong and the HKJC has secured a marquee value name.

Yes, he is coming over at a time when there might be some tired horses going around- but there are also trainers like John Size, John Moore, Richard Gibson and Tony Cruz with new horsepower, some of which just might go to the Berry boy.

No one said life would be easy and Tommy Berry won’t find things as easy to come by as in Oz where he has had the backing of one of the most successful stables in the country.

(Source: Daily Telegraph)

Surely, however, this is why he has made the very serious career decision to ride in the most competitive racing environment in the world and a very International group of jockeys with vastly different riding styles?

Welcome aboard, Tommy Berry.

(Source: SCMP)