I’m certain you enjoyed Sunday’s LONGINES Hong Kong International Races at Sha Tin as much as I did. The day offered plenty of excitement and terrific racing action to all and I can confidently say that it was one of the most astonishing days of international racing ever seen in Hong Kong.
I’m astonished with the tremendous support of our local racing fans and overseas visitors, as over 100,000 racegoers went through the turnstiles at both racecourses and created the highest ever attendance for the meeting. We also reported the highest turnover of this race meeting at HK$1.518 billion. The figure of HK$72 million from commingling was also an HKIR record, up 41 percent from last year’s HKIR meeting.
I have to offer my special thanks to our partner Longines, to our team of thousands for the terrific job throughout the preparation of the event and the big day on Sunday, and also to our local and overseas media for giving extensive coverage of this annual showpiece event.
For the four G1s on the day, we shared the spoils with our Japanese friends, winning two races each. Among them Maurice produced a stupendous display in the Cup, getting his third G1 success in Hong Kong. It was an absolutely world-class, world champion performance, and was the best form on turf that I have seen for a long time. Remarkably, Maurice has won five of the world’s top 50 Group 1 races over the last 18 months, and all six of his G1 wins were in the world’s top 100. He is indeed a champion and we have been so lucky to have him in Hong Kong on three occasions.
From a Hong Kong perspective, some were skeptical if our local runners could defend home turf and we certainly proved the doubters wrong. Our team of elite runners showed Hong Kong’s “can do” spirit, dominating with the first four placings in the Mile and Sprint. It’s definitely a memorable race meeting for me and I’m hopeful it can reach another new level next year.
It was great to see many of our overseas friends in racing here to join us for the week and we return to our regular racing fixtures with an eight race card at Happy Valley tonight. The eighth race is the Tai Kok Tsui Handicap (2nd section), a Class 3 event over the 1,650m of the C Course. The pace is projected to be good with Happy Spirit likely to go forward. Sunny Win was forward both times off wide draws and might settle a bit more today in gate two. Aerospeed and Victory Marvel are the likely contenders to track the top pair with Trump in danger of being caught wide, along with Classic Emperor, who normally likes to go forward, but might have to find spot off the pace due to his wide barrier. Hard Ball Get and The Sylph could both get good runs behind the speed, as will Winston’s Lad.
The Sylph has been running incredibly well this season without a win following a long-awaited success at the end of last season. He has a good draw in gate four, is working well and should enjoy a solid pace to track. I will make him my main win and place chance. Sunny Win has overcome two wide draws at Happy Valley and won on both occasions and will now get a decent draw which should enable jockey Ben So to secure a good position in the run. He is a solid win and place hope. Happy Spirit is the likely leader under Joao Moreira, who will try to coax everything out of this gelding to manage a win. He is incredibly proficient over this trip and just missed last time when caught by Sunny Win. He remains a strong chance tonight if the pace ends up slower than anticipated.
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