Last Wednesday, we have hosted the Oktoberfest for the second consecutive race meetings in the Happy Valley Racecourse. The atmosphere of the Beer Garden was great that night and I was pleased to see so many people having a good time there. It again shows that this racetrack is a great destination for people to enjoy some exciting races, and at the same time, relax themselves after work in the midweek.
I'm also quite surprised with the turnover that evening, as it has exceeded HK$700 million and stayed put with the comparative meeting last season. However, as global market atmosphere remains very volatile and most investors lack confidence at this moment, I still have my reservation and will not be too optimistic with our racing turnover in a near future.
Well, life is full of surprises. On the same day, there was another matter that made me not quite happy, as I was involved in a traffic accident before races, and the tire rim of the rear right wheel of my car was damaged. The driver that caused the collision was a bit stunned, but he was quite sincere, apologetic and willing to take his full responsibility on the matter.
It's actually an unfortunate incident and I also don't want to give the driver a hard time. So I chose to deal with the matter in a more harmonious way. I believe that under current social sentiment, if people can show more understanding to others, everyone in our society will surely be happier.
Same logic can also apply on the Club as we are asking for the Government and its officials to give us their understanding under present economic climate, by granting us with extra racedays and removing those existing limitations on overseas simulcast races. The Club also understands the needs of our trainers and Owners and that's why we decided to arrange 11 races in some of our racedays on weekends and Sundays this season.
With the new season already started over a month, a great number of racehorses have already taken their warm-up runs at races. It's natural for their trainers and Owners to draft a detailed race plans for their racehorses for the months to come. We saw their needs and by adding the number of races to 11 in some of the racedays, I hope it can offer more race options, of different distances and tracks, for the parties concerned.
This proved to be vital as shown in our races at Happy Valley tomorrow, most of the 11 races on the card have been full-fielded.
At the same time, as the Club still cannot increase the number of racedays at this moment, this measure will help stablising the Club's turnover under present economic circumstances, so as to better supporting us to fulfil the HK$8 billion tax we guaranteed to the government, and maintain the substantial contributions that we pledged for different local charity projects every year.
But I'd like to stress that we have no intention to arrange 11 races for all daytime race meetings and we will just be making such an arrangement in those major racedays, as well as festival meetings. Tomorrow at Happy Valley there will feature a special race meeting – the first of the two daytime race meetings at this city racetrack this season. I knew that many racing fans, particularly those veteran racing fans and our long-time supporters of the Club, had many fond memories on daylight racing in Happy Valley. So I hope you all come joining us and feeling such a special racing experience at this city racetrack again tomorrow.
I'll be keeping an eye to the performance of Multo Expresso (The American Club Challenge Cup), Lucky Winner (Gloucester Handicap) and Bear Macho (The Police Cup). Multo Expresso delivered a good turn of foot last start despite the slow tempo and should be hard to beat. Regarding Lucky Winner and Bear Macho, both are specialists at HV 1200m and should run well with the good draw.
Comment
