Hong Kong Jockey Club on Wednesday confirmed the retirement of trainer Tony Millard and granted a jockey’s licence to Andrea Atzeni for the 2023-24 season.

The club’s licensing committee approved Millard’s application to relinquish his trainer’s licence, as the 61-year-old brings down the curtain on a training career that had entered its fourth decade and yielded more than 700 winners in the city.

A former champion trainer in South Africa, Millard made an immediate impact on his arrival, winning the 2000 Hong Kong Derby with Keen Winner in his first season.

Ambitious Dragon, twice crowned Horse of the Year, provided his most spectacular successes in Hong Kong, with 13 career wins that included two Group One and five local Group Ones.

Their run of winners included the QE II Cup, the Hong Kong Derby and the Hong Kong Classic Cup in 2011. The following year saw them triumph in the Hong Kong Mile, the Stewards’ Cup and the Hong Kong Gold Cup, and the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup was theirs in 2013.

In 2011, Millard also took Hong Kong’s star mare Sweet Sanette to Royal Ascot, where she finished third in the Group One King’s Stand Stakes.

There followed further successes in the Korea Sprint with Super Jockey in 2016, and the 2018 Hong Kong Classic Cup with Singapore Sling.

Millard’s most recent big-race success came at the tail-end of the 2020-21 season, in the Group One Champions & Chater Cup with Panfield.

He saddled his 700th winner in Hong Kong at Happy Valley in May last year.

The licensing committee also announced that it had granted a part-season licence to Atzeni, an England-based Italian, for the next racing season, running until February 12 next year.

A graduate of the British Racing School, Atzeni’s first classic win was Kingston Hill’s Group One St Leger in 2014. He was previously contracted to ride a short stint in Hong Kong in 2014-15.