The season’s first night meeting at Happy Valley on Wednesday was another big success to follow our season opener at Sha Tin last week, as the night’s turnover of HK$876 million was the highest figure we have had for this meeting since 1997.
With significant upgrades to the facilities as well as re-branding the night meetings as a form of social and stylish entertainment in recent years, Happy Valley has become a highly impressive racing venue, as well as a unique racecourse. It now has a very good global profile and is a must-see attraction for overseas visitors. On Wednesday, some stars from a different sporting sphere dropped by to experience the thrills and excitement of the Valley. An exhibition snooker tournament is being held in the city this week, featuring a few of the world’s top players such as Hong Kong’s Marco Fu, current world number one Neil Robertson and former world champion and current world number four Shaun Murphy among others. Although I missed the chance to meet the players, my colleagues told me that some lucky fans recognised them and had their photos taken with them. It just shows that there could always be an unexpected surprise when you join our meetings at the Valley.
The world’s top snooker players play all around the world helping to grow and promote the sport globally. Likewise in racing more and more owners and trainers are willing to send horses to compete in major races overseas. While human athletes are subject to border controls, horses must comply with quarantine arrangements when travelling to other countries.
Quarantine arrangements are important for the operation of our horse training centre in Conghua, which is currently under construction. I’m delighted that we reached another important milestone on this front just this week, as I was in Beijing on Thursday to witness SAR and Mainland China’s health officials sign an agreement on the inspection and quarantine of Hong Kong race horses to be transported between Hong Kong and Conghua. In general, it allows racehorses which receive a multi-entry permit in the future to avoid the need to be quarantined on each occasion that they are transported across the border. I would like to offer my gratitude for the effort the officials have put in to make this achievable and I fully agreed with Dr Ko Wing-man, our Secretary for Food and Health, referring the agreement as a breakthrough, which ensures the safety and health of racehorses with stringent monitoring procedures, and that it has become a model the World Organisation for Animal Health acknowledged as a good reference.
As far as Hong Kong racing is concerned, with our current stable and horse training facilities at Sha Tin at full stretch, the operation in Conghua will offer much-needed additional facilities and flexibility for the stabling and training of horses. The project will be very important for the development of our sport and to maintain the world-class status of Hong Kong racing.
There will be more on Conghua in the future, but let’s get back to our races as there are 10 contests on Sunday’s card at Sha Tin. The day’s feature race, the Kwangtung Handicap Cup, has an interesting history as it decided the results of the Autumn Sweepstakes until the 1970s. It has attracted a very good quality field this year, including some nice pattern race performers from last season, and also a few promising young stars such as Mizani and champion griffin All You Wish. I am looking forward to seeing how these good horses fare on their seasonal debuts.
Aashiq is likely and capable to set a good to fast pace which should help him but ensures that every horse has a fair chance. Bullish Champion, Penglai Xianzi, Mizani, Zaidan and All You Wish can be well placed too and will give them a chance to run him down. Bullish Champion is working very well and can run very fast sectionals at the end and is a strong win and place contender. Mizani is working very well too and is capable of running very strong sectionals at the end which applies even more to All You Wish. Referring to past form these three horses are the ones that could finish in the first three, and their fitness will make the difference. Tony Cruz has his horses in very good shape and this is why I tend to favour Bullish Champion slightly, even I believe that All You Wish has the ability to become one of the top four-year-olds in Hong Kong.
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