James Cummings will make the permanent move to Hong Kong next month. (Photo: Inglis)
James Cummings will relocate to Hong Kong next month to make sure he is fully immersed in the local racing scene ahead of his maiden season based at Sha Tin next year.
But first Cummings will take in the Breeders’ Cup from seaside Del Mar later this month as he undertakes an international discovery mission to be as prepared as he can be before his first runners hit the track next September.
Since his Australian training career came to an end in July 31, having been confirmed by the Hong Kong Jockey Club in June as a new recruit from the beginning of the 2026/27 racing season, Cummings has honed his racing knowledge via a number of international trips.
“I’ve been to Ireland, I’ve been to Hong Kong a couple of times and getting to the Breeders’ Cup will be another opportunity to meet some more people and see a few other ways of doing things,” Cummings said.
“I think familiarising myself with some of these locations and these training setups just gives me a better idea of where some of the horses might be coming from in the future.
“So, (the time off has) been good from that perspective and also inevitably good to meet more people and open up a few more doors and a few more lines of communication.”
Godolphin’s former Australian private trainer, Cummings made a cameo appearance at Thursday’s Inglis Ready2Race Sale in his home city of Sydney.
He paid $510,000 for a gelding by Yulong’s Lucky Vega late in the one-day sale, his sole purchase from Inglis’s two-year-old auction, and the 52-time Group 1-winning trainer is confident the horse had the right credentials for Hong Kong racing.
What happens between now and when the horse is ready to be exported to Hong Kong is still undecided.
Fellow former Sydney trainer Mark Newnham, for instance, has been using Blake Ryan at Hawkesbury and former jockey-turned-trainer Danny Beasley at Wagga in southern NSW to educate and pre-train some of his horses.
Other Hong Kong owners and trainers use facilities such as Muskoka Farm, also on the outskirts of Sydney, to educate their horses as yearlings and two-year-olds.
“It’s a good question. We’ve got quite a few options on the table, so I’m sort of feeling my way a little bit with that at the moment,” Cummings said.
“There’s already a couple of guys that are helping me out with some stuff and maybe we’ll just continue to build on that, but it’s interesting just seeing what the successful stables in Hong Kong do in terms of their feeder stables.
“I’ll just remain open-minded and take a pretty softly, softly approach at the early stages.”
Cummings has made intermittent trips to Hong Kong in recent months hoping to learn the lay of the training landscape, but that will become more intense when he lands in Asia on a full-time basis in November.
He said he’d only “just scratched the surface” when it came to identifying the traits of horses and trainers and what works in Hong Kong.
“I’ve been paying attention to what’s working, that’s a critical part of it, what’s working for other stables where I could see similarities and if I think things can change,” he said.
“But I have a little bit of confidence about getting started and getting the ball rolling and I think that opportunities can come from there.”
Cummings is expected to officially gain access to his own Sha Tin stables from June.
Hong Kong buyers were credited with buying 37 two-year-olds at the Inglis sale, but in truth it was more than that, with Hong Kong-based owner Eugene Chuang, who operates Hermitage Thoroughbreds in Australia, signed for six lots including the sale-topping $900,000 colt by Toronado.
Chuang, who has Lady Shenandoah running in The Everest on Saturday, spent a total of $2.585 million at the Inglis sale.