An interesting sports story that caught my eye in midweek was the final game played by Brazilian superstar Ronaldo in a friendly international between Brazil and Romania in Sao Paulo. He actually retired from league football in February, but turned out to play one final match for his country before officially hanging up his boots. Although he was only on the pitch for 15 minutes and wasn't able to score, the home fans gave him a huge and noisy send-off from the football stage.
As I'm sure most Hong Kong football fans know, Ronaldo spent the peak of his career not in Brazil but in Europe, where he played for top teams like Barcelona, Inter Milan and Real Madrid and became famous for his searing pace and predatory goalscoring instinct. In later years his career was hampered by several long spells out of the game through injury, though he remained a prolific scorer and was three times named FIFA Player of the Year, as well as collecting World Cup winners' medals in 1994 and 2002. Without doubt he qualifies as one of the greatest footballers of all time, and I think he will be sorely missed by football fans all over the world.
In our own sport of racing, we also saw a great racing star bowing out this week as champion runner Viva Pataca was retired by his Owner, Dr Stanley Ho on Wednesday. This followed his appearance last month in the Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup, when he finished a very creditable third - not bad for a nine-year-old - to complete an unprecedented feat of finishing in the top three of this race for six consecutive years.
Although Viva Pataca failed to add to his winning record in seven attempts this season, that cannot dilute his massive achievements over the six seasons of his illustrious career in Hong Kong, which saw him amass total earnings of HK$83,197,500, the highest in local racing history.
Of his 13 victories in Hong Kong, eight of them were at Group 1 level. He won the 2006 Derby on his fourth outing in Hong Kong, then went on to win the Champions & Chater Cup three times and the Audemars Piguet QE II Cup and Hong Kong Gold Cup twice each. He was named Horse of the Year in 2008/09 and took both the Champion Stayer and Champion Middle-Distance titles three times each, underlining his versatility and durability.
It seems likely that this great champion will be sent to Australia to enjoy his retired life, though I understand that his trainer John Moore still awaiting confirmation of that from Dr Ho. But whatever the decision, we will arrange a special farewell ceremony for Viva Pataca at Sha Tin Racecourse, so that our racing fans can bid farewell to this equine hero one last time. We'll keep you posted on the chosen date and time.
At Sha Tin this afternoon, we'll be celebrating another very important aspect of the Club's operations by staging our 7th Annual Community Day race meeting. On this occasion each year, we invite representatives of social welfare organisations, Government agencies, academic institutions and other community groups to enjoy an afternoon's racing with us, as a tribute to our successful partnerships in building a better Hong Kong together. Through this annual event, we also aim to raise public awareness of the critical role played by the Club and non-government organisations in supporting the local community.
This year many of the guests will come from smaller social welfare groups who work with us under our Community Project Grant scheme, which provides them with stable three-year funding to fill some important gaps in Hong Kong's social support network. Currently we have 52 partner agencies working with us under this scheme and their projects are benefiting some 830,000 local residents a year in such underprivileged groups as the single elderly, the disabled, new immigrant families, ethnic minorities and delinquent youths. So it's worth remembering when you're enjoying your racing and betting today that your valued support will go on to help many less fortunate people in our society.
In the day’s highlight race, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Community Trophy (Handicap), we have some upcoming horses fighting it out for this trophy race. The expected good pace will ensure a fair chance for every horse and with the usual track bias at the straight 1000m course we can expect Dane Patrol to lead with Diamond Knight and Fair Navigator in ideal striking positions. Bear Hero is drawn well in Gate 8 which enables this two-year-old to be in the middle of the course. Partnered with our new apprentice Alvin Ng - with a 10 pound claim, I think he will be difficult to beat in this race. Eagle Regiment from Gate 7 will try to shadow him and I think he has a nice chance getting a top-three finish. So do two other three-year-olds Time After Time and Xi Ying Men.
The Cherishing Your Family Handicap is expected to be run in a good to slow tempo which gives every horses on the pace a slight advantage. Project Runway should take the lead and with Alvin Ng on board, he will be tough to run down. New Vision is the main opponent who will be in the box seat following Project Runway, while Viva Freedom and Nice Folks will be the other chances in this mile event.
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