The Olympic equestrian events in Hong Kong will begin in less than two weeks' time and the Olympic horses have already started to arrive. I was among those who watched the first batch of 13 horses reach their new home in the Olympic stables complex at Sha Tin last Saturday morning.
Although these warmblood horses had taken a whole day to travel from Amsterdam to Hong Kong, followed by a 45-minute journey from the Airport to the Olympic stables, they all looked relaxed and in good shape walking down the ramps from the Club's horse floats. I was delighted to see the transportation procedures operating so smoothly, as it tells me that the extensive preparations made by our transport team have proved effective and fully worthwhile.
I walked around the equestrian venue later on and was really impressed by the wonderful job that our team has done. It really is a superb equine facility built by horsemen for horsemen. Here I would like to offer my praise to our Racing Operations team for their preparations of the stables and other facilities, along with the Veterinary Clinical Services team who performed body temperature and health check on the horses upon their arrival at the airport, and again after they reached the Olympic stables. And of course, there is a huge number of other Club staff who have also put tremendous efforts into supporting this event, and among them, I would like to offer my special compliments to John Ridley, Head of Racing Operations; Christopher Riggs, Head of Veterinary Clinical Services; Tony Shea, Equestrian Stable Manager; and T Y Cheung, Assistant Track Manager.
Today, the last batch of 14,000 Olympic equestrian event tickets will go on sale in Hong Kong. I hope you will all take this final opportunity to purchase tickets, if you have not already done so, and share the experience of this historic event. Although the jumping and cross-country events may be easier to understand if you're not too familiar with equestrian sports, I would recommend that you take the opportunity to watch the dressage, too, as this fascinating discipline is perhaps the ultimate expression of the bond between humans and horses, and there are a quite a number of top international dressage stars coming to Hong Kong.
Definitely near the head of the list will be Dutch rider Anky van Grunsven, an eight-time dressage world champion and two-time Olympic individual dressage gold medallist. Anky has already arrived in Hong Kong and she will again be partnering IPS Salinero – the horse that helped her win the individual dressage gold medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004. So you all have the chance to see whether she can win her third straight Olympic gold in the same event in Hong Kong.
However, I was saddened to hear that Jennifer Lee, who secured her SAR passport only ten days ago enabling her to represent Hong Kong in the jumping event, has been forced to withdraw from the Games after her partner horse Mr Burns sustained leg injuries during training in Europe. It's such disappointing news for this dedicated sportswoman who has put so much effort into reaching the Games.
Nevertheless, our other three Hong Kong equestrian team members – Kenneth Cheng, Patrick Lam and Samantha Lam – will still be able to compete in the team jumping as well as individually, although Jennifer's withdrawal will make their challenge of progressing to the second round of the team event even tougher. And that's all the more reason for you to be at Sha Tin in just over two weeks' time, to give your full support to the Hong Kong team and cheer on our local heroes.
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