Black Ball, White Ball and Mick Kinane

At the age of 50, legendary Irish jockey Mick Kinane retired from professional racing on December 8, 2009. Story.

He had spent many years riding in Hong Kong during the European off seasons. There were many great races, such as Che Sara Sara (先見之明) in the 1996 Hong Kong Derby,




Winning Partners (勝利拍檔) in the 1993 Hong Kong International Bowl,




Precision (計得精彩) in the 2002 Hong Kong Cup at odds of 65-1,




and Viva Pataca (爆冷) in the 2007 Queen Elizabeth II Cup, defeating 2 of the best horses in racing in that era - Vengeance Of Rain and Admire Moon.




These are all good horses and good rides. However, I think the one race that many Hong Kong racing fan will always associate to Kinane's name is a horse named Benji. In his career debut in a domestic Class 4 handicap at 1400m on March 10, 1996, he drew gate #10 and raced with a nose-bend.



In Hong Kong racing history, this is known as the "Black and White Ball Incident" (黑白波事件), or simply the "Benji Incident" (雲中龍事件). After this race, the owner moved Benji to Patrick Biancone's stable and in his immediate next race, he won by 7 lengths at odds of 3-5.