Joao Moreira was at it again this past Sunday, this time riding five winners on the card. Thanks to his winning quintet, his stakes won this season rose to HK$112 million, exceeding the HK$109 million record for a season’s earnings that Douglas Whyte set in the 2012/13 season. Joao has somehow achieved the new record in incredible time as he passed the old mark with 35 race meetings to spare. While Joao and Zac Purton have been in top form here in Hong Kong, last Saturday Brett Prebble, Douglas Whyte and Nash Rawiller all took part in the G1 Australian Guineas and these three HK-based riders finished first, second and fourth. That drew a lot of media attention Down Under and in Hong Kong. As a keen racing fan, I really think it’s great that twice a week we get the chance to watch these star jockeys in action here in Hong Kong at Sha Tin and Happy Valley. The weekend’s results just emphasised that our jockeys’ rank is of a very high standard.
In another development outside of racing, I believe some of you will have noticed that the Club hosted a press conference on Monday introducing more upcoming events that will enable the general public to join together with us in celebrating the Club’s 130th Anniversary. Our upcoming highlight this time is the large-scale Community Festival which will be held at Penfold Park between 3 and 5 April, the first three days of the Easter festival.
I was delighted to meet with a few guests who joined us for the announcement that day and are giving us great support, including Chocolate Rain’s designer Prudence Mak, former TV anchor Akina Fong, who is now a leather crafting artist, and my old friend Chris O’Brien from the Manchester United Soccer School Hong Kong.
At the Community Festival Akina will host special leather wallet making workshops for children, while Chris and United legend Denis Irwin will meet the public and host a football skills assessment platform for teenagers. The four best performing youngsters will have the chance to go to Manchester and train with fellow youngsters there this summer.
We will have popular regular features like the Shetland Pony riding and equestrian performances, and some participating students will also have the opportunity to play their part in setting a world record. We will in fact make two attempts at Guinness World Records at the Community Festival. We will aim to create a new record by producing a 130m long horse painting, which will be achieved by about a thousand primary and secondary students under the guidance of renowned artist Simon Ma, and we will also create installations of 13,000 papier mache eco-horse sculptures made by recycled paper, which would be a new world record too, all made by more than 10,000 students.
We hope that while all kids and teenagers will enjoy fun times together with their parents and families. The educational elements of these activities will also help them to explore potential and enhance their appreciation of community. With overwhelmed public response, online registration for admission tickets of this carnival have been closed yesterday. I would like to thank all for your great support and I look forward to seeing many of you and your kids there next month.
Before then, let’s turn our focus back to our races at Happy Valley tonight. There are just two Class 2 sprints remaining for those leading contenders of Million Challenge, particular for those whose ratings are 80 or above, before the series to be concluded on 1 April. Second placed All Great Friends at 44.5 points, and our International Sale graduate Fabulous November, with 31.5 points in 10th, will both feature in the Arsenal Handicap in Race 9 this evening. I will see if they can grab the chance and further enhance their positions on the leaderboard as entering the final weeks of the contest.
It’s a very open Class 2 race over 1200m and the tempo should be good to fast as there are plenty of leaders in the race. The pace should help some horses running on from behind. Precision King will probably take up his usual leading role but may be challenged by Harbour Punk who was even able to lead over 1000m. All Great Friends should be able to take the box seat with Go Baby Go or Pablosky on his outside. Charity Joy and Fabulous November are likely to settle midfield with a risk to be caught wide, while Happy Yeah Yeah and Bullish Friend will be on their inside. Disciples Twelve and Silly Buddies may be taken back to avoid racing wide due to their outside draws. Both of them might be tracking Smart Man.
All Great Friends, Disciples Twelve, Precision King and Pablosky are all working very well and have to be considered as chances here. My first choice is All Great Friends, due to his good draw and likely good position he can take up in the race, with Pablosky as my second choice in this race.
Comment
