Over the past few days, many locals and expats posted their heartfelt messages and logos on various online platforms, showing their solidarity with France and to pay tribute to those victims of the attacks last Friday. Our racing circle also has many French connections and we wish all of our friends our most sincere thoughts.
Many members of the local community also showed their strong support to Hong Kong when they played out a goalless draw against China in the 2018 World Cup qualifier at Mong Kok Stadium last night.
The Hong Kong team came to this match with their best spells in recent years – having won four and tied one in their previous six matches in the qualifiers, and secured five clean sheets in between. So understandably the local players, fuelling with the roaring cheer support by thousands of home fans, were playing in a very high spirit early in the match.
Unfortunately I could not be in the Mongkok Stadium to watch the game, because I had a long standing commitment with an overseas visitor for a working dinner which could not been changed. But I have to admit that I was keen to see the last 30 minutes of the match after my guest left for the airport. The Hong Kong team showed great resilience and really played like a team with our goalkeeper Yapp Hung-fai being the outstanding player on the pitch, making many amazing and acrobatic saves. They had a little bit of luck too. But you need this and they deserved it because they showed the Hong Kong “Can Do Spirit”.
The recent performances of the team have earned the plaudits and huge praises from many football commentators and fans. It’s great to see the team keeps improving and the enthusiasm as shown by local public. This extra attention on the sport will always be a welcoming and positive trend for its development in the long run, and the Club continues to support the development of the game amongst children in our community.
Getting back to racing, the race focus will be on the dirt track instead of on turf, in our first all-weather race night of the season this evening. Gun Pit, the star dirt performer who went six out of six on this surface, and has a possible trip to Japan on its agenda, will be the spotlight in the Class 1 Jackson Handicap. It is run as Race 6 over 1650m, with a rating band from 115 to 90 on the All Weather Track. The race has attracted a full field of 14 horses. Besides Gun Pit who is a six-time winner over course and distance, there are six other horses with ratings above 100 which makes it a real Class 1 affair.
The pace is expected to be good to slow, with Pablosky leading like when racing in a similar race in July which was won by Gun Pit. The three horses that are going up over the 1650m for the first time - Access Years, Eroico and Disciples Twelve – as well as Fabulous November who contested over this distance in July, should position closer to the pace than normal, with Pleasure Gains joining them in the front of the field. Eroico should be well positioned behind them while Tour De Force could be forced to race wide in midfield, with Exciting Dream a bit further back. The rest of the field, including Gun Pit, will come from further back.
Gun Pit is working well and has trialled very well. He can run very fast last sectionals and is the clear favourite here as a course and distance winner. We have some other good All Weather Track performers in the field but most of them are only proven over 1200m on this surface, and their turf form is between 1200 and 1400m, which makes the prediction a bit more difficult. Being placed at course and distance, I like the lightweight Pablosky for a place and he has trialed well lately. Exciting Dream is my next choice being a winner over the All Weather surface at a distance of 1200m and winning on the turf over 1400m, with a good fourth in the Celebration Cup last month, beaten by Contentment. Mr Gnocchi responded well in his two All Weather barrier trials and has good form over 1600m. He is my next choice, along with Eroico who is unproven over course and distance but should run well.
Comment
