I'm sure you must all have been as thrilled as I was to see our top sprinter Sacred Kingdom prevail in the KrisFlyer International Sprint in Singapore last Sunday. I was lucky enough to be at Kranji to see the race live, and I can tell you that the atmosphere there was electrifying, with the home crowd naturally saving their loudest cheers for home favourite Rocket Man. But Sacred Kingdom looked truly outstanding in the paddock and I think one has to give full credit to trainer Ricky Yiu and his team for preparing the horse so well in its first overseas trip.
Brett Prebble's performance was superb, though he said later that he kicked a little bit too early and Sacred Kingdom was starting to ease down before the winning post. Anyway, it's wonderful to see this world-class sprinter bounce back from leg injury to win a top overseas event. Although Rocket Man' s winning streak was snapped, I would say he lost nothing in defeat as this 3-year-old and Sacred Kingdom have underlined their credentials as the top two turf sprinters in the world.
It was generally agreed that this was the best sprint race seen worldwide this year, and it's unlikely to be matched until our own Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint in December. I'm delighted to say that the connections of Rocket Man have already accepted our invitation to run in the Hong Kong Sprint, and I believe that racing fans worldwide will be eagerly looking forward to the rematch of these two great champions at Sha Tin.
Sacred Kingdom has already returned to Hong Kong, arriving late on Tuesday. It would be great if his Owner and Ricky Yiu make the bold decision to take him to England for the Golden Jubilee Stakes at Ascot next month, as I'm sure he would do Hong Kong proud. Yet should that happen, we will be in the ironic situation that the Club will not be able to screen the race for viewing and betting for our home fans, as it does not fall on a Hong Kong raceday and also, that will exceed the quota of 10 simulcast races this season. This scenario again emphasises why the current simulcast framework is seriously outdated, and should be aligned with today's realities as soon as possible.
Government support is vital for the development of horse racing in every racing jurisdiction. In recent years, the Singaporean government has actively fostered the development of various sports in the city state, notably its successful hosting of the first-ever Formula 1 night race last September, which gave a huge boost to the city's tourism industry. The government has also offered substantial support to the Singapore Turf Club to develop its horse racing by offering a more flexibility in the operational regime and favourable tax rate.
I was very impressed to see the improvements they've made at Kranji in recent years and I think this was the best international meeting held there to date. But I can tell you that this progress is not limited to their international races as I also spent time over the weekend taking a closer look at the racecourse facilities, stabling arrangements and planned expansion projects at Kranji. Besides the turf track there, they now have four smaller training tracks and are building a polytrack uphill gallop, which will be ready by early 2010. The stabling capacity will also be expanded to 1,500 when its newly constructed 350 stables completed by this coming September.
Comparatively at Sha Tin, most of our training and stabling facilities have been in use for more than 30 years and due to space limitation, further expansion or reconstruction doesn't seem to be a viable option to us. Given that Singapore is one of our friendly rivals in the region and has a similar horse population to us, this shows the need for us to reassess our facilities at Sha Tin and make sure our hardware is not lagging that of our regional counterparts.
Back to our race meeting at Happy Valley tonight, which is quite a special one as we are running our night races on Thursday instead of the usual Wednesday. I look forward to hearing your feedback on it.
On the track, I will be paying my attention to the performances of Legend and Marvellous in the Tsui Man Handicap. Having snatched a winner in a 1,200m race at Happy Valley last month, Legend has again delivered a nice performance and finished second at Sha Tin in his last start. Brett Prebble will be riding this in-form horse again, adding to the good draw, let's see if he can repeat his decent performance tonight. Being a consistent performer at Happy Valley, Marvellous will be partnered by Darren Beadman tonight and I think he should have a good outsider chance in this race.
In the Broom Handicap, Charmgold is my first choice in this race as this young horse made two promising runs at Happy Valley back in February and March. Taken a short break since his last start at Sha Tin a month ago, I hope this will give him extra freshness and perform better in the race. In the meantime, although Ocean Tranquil has been absent from races since making two appearances at the start of the season, he had a nice performance in a barrier trial last week, showing that his health condition becoming more stable. He had decent first-up records and a sound performance at the rain-affected track in the past. Even if it's raining at Happy Valley, I think he's still capable of giving a nice run there this evening.
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