Cody Mo Wai-kit has been granted a trainer’s licence in Hong Kong ahead of the 2023-24 season.
Mo joins Australian trainer Mark Newnham, whom the Jockey Club unveiled three months ago, as a newcomer to the Hong Kong training ranks next term, following a lengthy apprenticeship assisting a quartet of bosses, most recently Tony Cruz for the past nine years.
In June 2008, the Jockey Club’s licensing committee promoted Mo from work rider to assistant trainer and assigned him to Melbourne Cup-winning conditioner David Hall, whom he supported for four years.
Mo spent single campaigns assisting David Ferraris (2012-13) and Benno Yung Tin-pang (2013-14) – the latter in his rookie year – before becoming Cruz’s right-hand man leading into the 2014-15 season.
In his time with Cruz, Mo would be involved with eight individual Group One winners.
“A great thank you to the club and the licensing committee for the opportunity to get a licence in 2023-24 to be a trainer,” 45-year-old Mo told media on Friday.
“I joined the club in 1993. I attended Racing Training Programme 14 and graduated in 1994. I was a work rider until 2008 when the club promoted me to assistant trainer. In the past 15 years, I followed four different trainers. I learned so much from them. I hope to have a career like them.”
Mo has also gained considerable overseas experience with his involvement with Silent Witness (2005) and Bullish Luck (2006) in Japan.
Mo has also spent time in New Zealand, visiting Karaka 2018 as part of a tour hosted by New Zealand Thoroughbred Marketing.
