Last Sunday, the Club successfully blended the sports of golf and horse racing in its partnership with the Mission Hills Group, hosting the Mission Hills Sha Tin Trophy raceday. At our race meeting at Sha Tin this evening, we shall be pegging racing with another sport – rugby football – and featuring the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union Cup.
The enthusiastic participation of these different sports institutions and companies shows clearly that they view racing as a sporting event, not merely as an activity that offers its participants betting opportunities, as certain parties have suggested.
While racing is definitely one of most closely-followed sports in Hong Kong, I think some of you also possess a fair knowledge of rugby, with the Hong Kong Sevens held in March every year being the most familiar local event.
This weekend Hong Kong rugby fans will have an additional treat, as two titans of the sport, the Australian Wallabies and the New Zealand All Blacks, will meet in a full international in Hong Kong, playing their first-ever Bledisloe Cup match outside those two countries this Saturday.
Although I haven't played rugby actively myself, having been reared on football which is the No.1 sport in Germany, I still much appreciate the sheer pace and athleticism displayed by the wingers and fullbacks, as well as the powerfulness of the forwards and their ability to tackle or create scoring chance for their teammates. As a full rugby union game features 15 players a side, it also involves highly complex formations and tactics. Speaking as a former professional footballer, I would say that tactically it's even more sophisticated than a football match.
Just like every member of a rugby team possesses different characteristics, our racehorses possess different abilities. Some may be good at the mile or classic distances, while others will perform their best not on turf, but on dirt tracks. That's why in the past few seasons, we've arranged a few race meetings at which all races are held on our all-weather track, and that will be the case with tonight's meeting at Sha Tin.
I believe this arrangement not only provides more opportunities for horses with different abilities to perform on a different surface, but also helps racing fans to accumulate more race statistics and form records, and thus generate a more comprehensive form guide for reference.
So I hope you all can enjoy our races tonight. Among the eight races on the card tonight, I will be paying attention to Lucky Quality in the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union Cup. In his last outing over 1200m on turf, Lucky Quality could still finish second even after missing the start and losing considerable ground. The 4-year-old colt trialled well to win a dirt trial a fortnight ago and I am expecting he will run another promising race in his first start on the all weather track. In the Fakei Cup, I will be interested to see the performance of Full Pack who won impressively in a dirt trial beating Best Friend in early October. Let's see if he can deliver similar performance tonight.
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