I'm sure most local sports fans must have felt very proud and ecstatic over the past weekend as we saw some terrific results for Hong Kong. In horse racing, Sacred Kingdom and Good Ba Ba helped the home team take two of our four International Races once again, the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint and Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Mile, with local runners filling the first four places in both cases. And in football, Hong Kong defeated Japan with a penalty shootout victory in the East Asian Games to take Hong Kong's first ever gold medal in a team sport at a major multi-sports event. Indeed, Hong Kong excelled throughout the EAG, collecting a remarkable 26 gold medals in total, more than all previous Games put together.
As a horseman and formerly a professional footballer, I'm especially delighted with these achievements. I think the support of the home crowd was an important factor in both cases, as the packed-out crowd at the Hong Kong Stadium for the football final effectively served as the "12th man" for Hong Kong. Likewise, the 56,000 people who attended our International Races created a tremendous atmosphere at Sha Tin, willing our home contenders to get a few more strides in front.
Anyway, many thanks for all your support on Sunday as the turnover reached HK$1,033 million, the first time it has exceeded the HK$1 billion mark this season. The terrific on-course atmosphere and high turnover confirmed once again that racing is Hong Kong's most popular spectator sport.
I was especially happy to see Sacred Kingdom return to his best after injury ruled him out of last year's Hong Kong Sprint. With the Sprint this year featuring probably its strongest line-up ever - nine International Group One winners from four continents - the way Sacred Kingdom thrashed his opponents was simply astonishing, living up to his reputation as the world's top sprinter. A return to Singapore now beckons to defend his KrisFlyer International Sprint title next May, so I hope he can repeat his dazzling performance there.
Veteran Good Ba Ba, though he will be turning eight next month, proved he's still one of the best milers in the world with his last-to-first triumph in the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Mile. With this victory, he became the first runner ever to win one of our Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Races for three successive years. Trainer Derek Cruz now hopes to bring his ace runner to contest in Dubai or Britain later this season and I look forward to seeing if these overseas plans will materialise.
You'll be pleased to hear that we've decided to extend this wonderful atmosphere of local sporting success to our race meeting at Happy Valley this evening. To honour the great performances of our home heroes, we've invited the Hong Kong Football Team to come racing tonight and to celebrate their famous victory alongside Brett Prebble and Olivier Doleuze, winning jockeys of Sacred Kingdom and Good Ba Ba respectively. As a gesture of appreciation, we will present souvenirs to the Hong Kong Football Team's manager Steven Lo and each of the gold medal team members. So please come to Happy Valley to join our celebration with these Hong Kong heroes this evening.
Apart from saluting these football legends, we will have eight races to enjoy on the card. I will be watching the performance of Amityship in the Pitt Handicap. This four-year-old runner has shown substantial improvement this season as he finished top four in all of his five previous runs. To be partnered by apprentice Derek Leung and enjoyed a 7-pound claim, I hope to see him deliver another good performance tonight. Among his opponents, Century Molly and Electronic Master recently performed nicely at the Valley, I think both runners are capable to make a close run this evening.
In the Po Yan Handicap, I will fancy the chance of Chater Power. Having ran a second and third in the same distance and course in September and October, this David Ferraris-trained runner is drawn Gate 4 and I'll see if it will boost his chance tonight. Easy and Elegant Win also performed consistently at the Valley and I think both of them can challenge Chater Power in this event.
Comment
