Global racing welcomed the emergence of a new superstar last weekend as American Pharoah won the Belmont Stakes in New York, becoming the first US Triple Crown winner in 37 years. I recapped the race footage on Sunday morning and while American Pharoah was once again allowed to dictate the pace, his sectionals were progressively faster, a relative rarity in American dirt racing. Only the great Secretariat recorded a faster time when capping the Triple Crown. With this success, American Pharoah has become a household name and a racing hero. Now everyone will be expecting more major wins and equally dominant performances in his other runs this season.
A young local rider also delivered two excellent front-running riding performances at Sha Tin on Sunday, apprentice jockey Jack Wong who secured wire-to-wire wins on both Mister Marc and Trillion Treasure. Jack is one of our latest products from the Apprentice Jockeys’ School. It has been three months since he joined our jockeys’ line-up in March and he has been doing quite well in his riding, scoring seven wins so far. Although his 10-pound claim gives him some advantage in races, that advantage only works out if the apprentice is capable.
Every year we undertake Racing Trainee Recruitment in search of new talents for the local racing industry. This recruitment process also gives opportunities to those youngsters who have an interest to develop their career in racing; it provides a route into the racing industry and with expert professional training. Our recruitment programme this year commenced on Monday, about a month or so earlier than in previous years. If you are interested, make sure you don’t miss the chance and send us an application before the recruitment period closes on 28 June.
If one wants to get my personal recommendations, I can say that if you want to pursue your dream in racing, you must set yourself with certain targets and goals. Only by doing so, it gives you the motivation, being more determined to seek for improvement and long-term success. I believe this is a universal concept, which could also apply to youngsters who are working in other sectors or business, and it will be beneficial to their career development.
Such direction is also in line with the ongoing efforts as made by our Club and the Charities Trust on CLAP for Youth@ JC, the five-year career and life planning project as we launched earlier this year. It will be great if we can assist those participants to recognise their life or career targets and to acquire informed choices at a younger stage, so that they can persevere and start working to fulfill their dreams at an earlier age. Relatively, I’m sure it would give them a better chance and probably an easier route on their way to succeed.
Apart from racing, football is of little difference as most of them would need to pay great efforts and undertake basic and persistent training at a younger age, before they are to stand for a chance to become a professional player. On Monday I attended a press conference concerning sports training for youths to mark the official announcement of this year’s Jockey Club Youth Football Development Programme. This is the fifth year that the Club is supporting this Hong Kong-wide football training programme. As the city’s largest charity contributor and sport organiser, we are pleased to continue our sponsorship and have pledged another HK$19 million to this project over the next five years. We expect over 50,000 youngsters will take part and benefit during that period. We hope this programme will help us spot and nurture more football talent in Hong Kong and I hope those participating youngsters will enjoy every minute of their time on the pitch.
Meanwhile, in the upcoming week, Hong Kong’s senior representative team will have two home matches for the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, against Bhutan tomorrow night, and the Maldives next Tuesday. I wish the team the very best of luck and hope for a great start to their World Cup campaign.
Apart from football there will be another exciting midweek race meeting at Happy Valley this evening for you all to enjoy. For the eight races on the card, the Chak On Handicap - a Class 2 event at 1200m - is the final race tonight. Two of the entrants, High Five and Lang Tai Sing, are both eligible for the Club’s High Achievement Bonus, whilst Harbour Punk and Mr Genuine are both recent recipients. To date, 24 horses have won the bonus this season, which rewards any horse that win in Class 2 or Class 1 before reaching the age of five with an additional HK$750,000 or HK$1 million, respectively. The Club also offers a HK$600,000 bonus for International Sale graduates which win a Class 3 race for the first time in its career before the end of its first full season. Over HK$20 million has been distributed through these bonus schemes to Owners so far this season.
High Five is a recent New Zealand import that came to Hong Kong on a rating of 82 and narrowly missed in his Happy Valley debut in late April. He has since trialled well at the Valley and draws the inside gate tonight, which should give him a contending position as he has speed to be involved from the outset. He is a top three chance in this very competitive race.
My Little Friend makes his first start at Happy Valley after trialing here last month and will make his run from the back. He comes off a good effort over the straight course at Sha Tin and is also a top-three chance along with the in-form Mr Genuine, another horse that will do his best running late. Harbour Punk is a win and place chance as he returns to Happy Valley after a try on the all-weather track at Sha Tin. The pace of this race should be moderate at best and this should suit his running style, which is to go forward and make the running.
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