It’s been a busy second month of the season in Hong Kong with champion rider Zac Purton soaring clear in the jockeys’ title, Mark Newnham extending his great start to the campaign, a swag of impressive wins from some exciting gallopers and Ka Ying Rising claiming The Everest (1,200m) at Randwick.

The Post analyses the jockeys and trainers who had an October to remember or one to forget, as well as the most outstanding victory and winning ride.

Who’s hot?

Purton proved why he is a class above his rivals with 16 local winners in October – not to mention his pair of Randwick victories, headlined by Ka Ying Rising in The Everest.

Purton soared past 1,900 career triumphs in Hong Kong and continued his march towards a ninth championship – with 26 wins this term, he is 15 clear of nearest rival Luke Ferraris, who had a productive month of his own with eight wins.

He says it is too early to be discussing his trainers’ title credentials, but Newnham is putting himself firmly in the conversation in his third season in the city.

The Australian handler was on fire with 14 winners from 63 runners in October, giving him an exceptional strike rate of 22.22 per cent for the month.

David Hayes and Manfred Man Ka-leung were next best of the trainers with both bagging eight wins. Man’s haul came from just 47 runners, giving him a strong strike rate of 17 per cent.

Who’s not?

It’s been a frustrating start to the campaign for British duo Richard Kingscote and David Probert and Keagan de Melo, who are all yet to get off the mark.

They do struggle to attract stronger rides and Kingscote in particular has gone close to a breakthrough success several times, riding five seconds and three thirds in October.

Brenton Avdulla was close to joining the trio on no wins for the month before ending a streak of 60 winless rides at Thursday’s dirt meeting.

From a trainers’ perspective, John Size is in the midst of his typical slow start to the season after a winless October.

The 13-time champion handler, who has notched only two victories this term, carries a streak of 75 runners without victory into November.

Jimmy Ting Koon-ho also had a winless October while David Eustace, Cody Mo Wai-kit and Dennis Yip Chor-hong managed only one triumph each.

Win of the month

There were plenty of excellent wins in October, but Ever Luck’s sensational debut was hard to go past as the best.

Heavily backed on the strength of his impressive trials, the Newnham-trained three-year-old worked forward from gate 14 to lead but ran out abruptly approaching the turn, taking eventual runner-up Georgian Sigma out wide with him.

But in an indication of his immense ability, Ever Luck recovered to run past Motor at the 100m en route to victory by one and three-quarter lengths.

It is incredibly rare to see a young debutant race as waywardly as Ever Luck did and still manage to beat his rivals, so his win is deserving of top honours for October, narrowly ahead of Tomodachi Kokoroe, who won the Group Two Premier Bowl in the second-fastest 1,200m ever recorded at Sha Tin.

Ride of the month

Kempes or Sunny Q? Andrea Atzeni produced a pair of daring rides to lift both gallopers to victory at the same Sha Tin meeting on October 1.

Atzeni’s display on Kempes gets the nod as the pick of the two, with the Sardinian spectacularly scything his way through the field from last to score in dramatic style.

Sent back to last from barrier 14, Kempes encountered plenty of traffic issues in the straight but Atzeni found a gap at the right time to gun down Harold Win on the line by a nose.

Atzeni also wove his way through the field aboard Sunny Q, while Lyle Hewitson’s move to land in the box seat from gate nine on Looks Outstanding en route to a dominant three-length romp at the Valley was also worthy of a mention.