ON Saturday we were fortunate enough to experience a bloodstock sale like none other. The Hong Kong Jockey Club hosted an elite International Breeze-Up sale at Sha Tin; the entire event can only be described as theatrical to observe. Two consignors prepped the 24 lots; Malcolm Bastard from England and Bruce Harvey from New Zealand.

Tattersalls’ auctioneer John O’Kelly was assigned to the rostrum assisted by spotters from some of the world’s leading bloodstock sales companies including Goff’s Seán Flannery and Tattersalls’ Matt Prior along with representatives from Inglis and Magic Millions in Australia.

The sales ring was set up in the parade ring with the genius addition of a big screen on which we could get an American baseball style close-up of the highest bidder in the audience. For the less camera shy, this would generate a great rush of excitement inducing some people to momentarily forget they were in the grasps of a multimillion dollar bidding war and begin waving frantically at the cameras. The result was a very profitable sale with the top lot reaching a cool seven million Hong Kong dollars.

A wonderful bonus of my Hong Kong visit was that I got to see my older brother, Harry, who lives just an hour away in Taiwan and good friend and former Irish Field contributor, Caitrin O’Rourke, who also popped over to Hong Kong for the weekend. As I was on duty for the majority of raceday, the Calahans and Tom were kind enough to take my guests under their wing and treat them to the Hong Kong Jockey Club hospitality which I heard was a quite a fanciful affair!

Meanwhile Mick and I were down in the quarantine yard faced with yet more veterinary inspections; the one thing you cannot say about the HKJC is that they are sparse with their security. As we were still in quarantine at the far side of the racecourse from the regular stables, we had to be boxed to the racecourse at 3pm, an hour before the race. We then waited until the runners for the race before ours had gone down to the start before we went into the pre-parade ring area.

Making our way through, we were preceded by short-priced favourite Able Friend. This horse had been the talk of Hong Kong all week; for anyone we spoke to about the race, all they were able to offer us was a sympathetic look that seemed to question what on earth we were doing taking this horse on. And seeing him in the flesh did little to ease our fears. He is a seriously imposing looking horse; both tall and strong, who wouldn’t have looked out of place lining up in the Grand National (if only he was limited to the speed of a four miler too). What’s more, he was incredibly laid back having to be chivvied along the whole way as Byron was striding out behind him, catching him with every one of his three strides to each one of Able Friend’s. If only it had been a walking race, we could easily have taken him if that was the case!

As we walked under the way into the parade ring to our saddling box, we were faced with an overwhelming scene. The parade ring was bursting with people, as were the surrounding stands. Byron, keen to get on with business, wasn’t happy about being locked into a saddling box out of sight of his audience. We quickly had him saddled before he burst out of the door and back into the spotlight. Wayne was soon on board and then it was only a short walk back out onto the track. Leaving him off left me with a knot in my stomach, I could do no more. He was in the safest of hands I could have asked for, but still, overprotective mother syndrome wanted me down in the stalls with him, making sure he was as comfortable as could be.

Looking for a bit of comfort myself, I made my way up on to the first level of the stands where Morgan and Jessica, my brother and Caitrin were poised to watch. On my way up I did suffer quite a surreal experience as I was stopped several times in order to have my photo taken with local punters - having picked up no Mandarin during my stay, I can only assume they were members of the GLB superfan club; the Chinese contingent.

The race itself was thankfully over in just over a minute; I can’t hold my breath for much longer than that and it was clear from the way Byron broke it wasn’t going to be his day. Despite a decent draw from stall three, he struggled to get going early on and then never travelled with his usual buoyancy or even found his top gear in the closing stages. It was a massive disappointment, I can’t sugarcoat it or make excuses; we had just travelled halfway around the world for the whole trip to be devalued in as little as 60 odd seconds.

Bringing him back in afterwards, Wayne reported what we had all seen; he simply hadn’t been himself. There was nothing obviously physically amiss with him, which was a relief, but had he put up his best performance and been beaten it would have been a lot easier to take; it was obvious to us all though that that was not the case. I felt deeply for all of his connections but with the horse still in one piece, I’m sure he will be back to fight another day.

I know it’s no consolation to the owners or to Tom, but I have had the most amazing experience; I have discovered a remarkable new place, met some wonderful friends; new and old, ridden the rollercoaster of emotions of competing in an international Group 1 and fallen in love with Gordon Lord Byron even more. So as far as I am concerned the trip has been far from wasted. And I’m fairly confident my trusty assistant Mick would be in full agreement with me, sure, he tried rice for the first time. And he actually didn’t mind it all that much.

“Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried.” Gordon Lord Byron.