As you may know, a water main at Wong Nai Chung Road was ruptured in the early hours of last Tuesday morning, causing serious inconvenience to thousands of people who live or work in the Happy Valley and Causeway Bay areas. Many restaurants in the district are also forced to stop their business as freshwater services were suspended.
With the adjacent road surface submerged by floodwater, our Tracks Department colleagues quickly proceeded to the part of the Happy Valley track adjoining the leak to attend conditions there. Although a small amount of floodwater had drained to that part of the track, our staff applied remedial measures immediately and the track remained unaffected for our evening races on Wednesday.
Many of our Club colleagues who work at the Sports Road headquarters were also stranded by the washout on their way in. I learnt that one colleague in the Administration Team, who is known as Ah Sing, used two metal barricades to assist colleagues and give
them a helping hand that enabled them to reach the office without getting wet. I would like to thank him for his inspired move. His generosity and helpfulness to other colleagues again shows our team spirit!
Apart from our midweek race meeting, we brought you the simulcasts of six races from the Dubai Super Thursday meeting. I also watched the simulcast and was impressed with the performance of two-time Champion Stakes winner Twice Over in the Al Maktoum Challenge Round 3. Having raced wide throughout the race, this six-year-old obviously showed better form on the Tapeta surface than he did when disappointing in the Dubai World Cup last year.
But I believe racing fans will surely be thrilled by the exciting three-way finish in the Jebel Hatta, as Wigmore Hall just caught Poet’s Voice and Presvis on the line to win this Group 2 event. I think the top three horses, who were all held up near the rear entering the straight, performed very well in this lead up race and I will be interested to see their performances in the Dubai World Cup meeting in three weeks’ time.
Business wise, we reported a total turnover of HK$73.6 million for these six simulcast races, which was 13 per cent higher than the HK$64.9 million for the six races in the Super Thursday simulcasts last season. From the six races, we also generated nearly HK$10 million in betting duty to the public coffers in less than four hours! Adding in the HK$77.4 million turnover and the HK$10.3 million betting duty for the Blue Diamond Stakes simulcasts last weekend, these figures again reflect the strong interest of our racing customers in these major overseas races, and the need to call for a review of the existing commingling arrangement and taxation structure. Hopefully the Government can soon take consideration of this issue, so as to enable the Club keep pace with its overseas racing counterparts on this major development.
Let’s get back to our local races. There will also be a top event on our 10-race card at Sha Tin Racecourse tomorrow as we will host the Hong Kong Group 1 Queen’s Silver Jubilee Stakes, final leg of this season’s Hong Kong Speed Series.
This 1400m event has provided local racing fans with many great memories in recent years. In the 2005 edition, our legendary sprinter Silent Witness, in his first career start over seven furlongs, broke the world record by completing his 17th consecutive victory with Felix Coetzee aboard.
In 2008 we witnessed an exciting duel between the best sprinter and the best miler at that time when Sacred Kingdom and Good Ba Ba squared off at this intermediate distance. Joyful Winner also joined the scramble striving for his third victory in succession in that race. Good Ba Ba finally came home the winner, with Sacred Kingdom, who was boxed in for most of the home straight, in second and Joyful Winner third.
We may expect more dramatic scenes this year as in the stellar line-up we have Beauty Flash, two-time Group One winner this season, as well as our top four-year-old – Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Classic Mile winner, Lucky Nine. The pair will meet the challenge of three other group performers from John Moore’s yard – One World, Sunny King and Let Me Fight. I believe it will certainly be a thrilling race to watch.
The Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup is a terrific clash between our world class sprinters and top milers over the 1400m distance. The expected good to slow pace will allow Beauty Flash to go to the front and try to set slower sections which will be beneficial to him and gives him a good chance to finish in the money. Lucky Nine will be in a perfect spot behind Beauty Flash and my only concern is him to settle coming back from 1800m. In this case, he should outsprint Beauty Flash and all other competitors. John Moore holds a strong hand with One World, Sunny King and Let Me Fight which all have a chance to stage a challenge. I would not be surprised to see Let Me Fight being the strongest one. Even he seems not to be the most genuine horse, but the additional 200m in stepping up to 1400m could be helpful.
The Amber Handicap is a very interesting race for me because six out of the 11 horses are four-year-olds who are eligible to secure a spot for the Derby and they meet proven Class 1 horses in this contest. The pace is expected to be slow which should help the in-form Vitality Express to go to the lead and control the race from the front. He is working well and I think he has a good chance to at least finish in the top three. With the predicted race pattern, he is the benchmark for the Derby hopefuls. All six four-year-olds would have to first take on this John Size’s five-year-old runner in this race.
For Military Move, I think it would appear to be a better option for Darren Beadman to try getting cover in midfield or behind midfield, because it is crucial for Military Move to find cover and nor pulling too much. The pace is against him and a lot of things have to go right for him. Even he has good potential; I expect more a place than a win which would put him into the Derby. Hollywood Kiss has some decent form and performances in European Group 3 and Listed events, but he has not adapted to Hong Kong’s environment yet, as it did for the likes of Mr Bond and Mr Marfach.
Victor Delight showed some improvements when he was beaten four lengths by Derby favourite Ambitious Dragon last time. Semos is working very well and it will be interesting to see if stepping up from 1600m to 1800m will help him to earn his qualification. These two four-year-olds, along with the other older horse Soviet Pearl who has shown good form recently, can also finish close in this race.
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