Many of us in the Club joined with about 47,000 participants in the Riding High Together Festival over the past three days.
I was there on the opening day on Friday and was glad to meet so many happy faces at Sha Tin Racecourse. Our theme this year is “Let’s Kindle Our Creativity”. For sure arts and culture played an integral part to this. A highlight in our festival this year was that nearly 1,000 participants and students took part in a record-breaking feat, each creating their personal art work and masterpiece in the world’s largest sculpting lesson. By that we achieved another Guinness World Record at our festival for the third consecutive year.
It’s also delightful to meet Manchester United legend Peter Schmeichel at our event once again. This world-class goalie gave his invaluable instructions and advice to our young goalkeepers and footballers. To the excitement of many attending parents Schmeichel also played an exhibition mini-soccer match with local students in the session. Our events with Peter took place on our concourse where many of our customers arrive and it may be worthwhile to explore this as a permanent venue on non-race days for the community to use to practice soccer.
As part of the RHT Festival, we announced a HK$117 million donation to expand the Hong Kong Jockey Club Community Project Grant which will support 65 support agencies and benefit some 1.1 million local residents in need of services. I also enjoyed the first of our 18 Riding High Together Lunches for the Elderly.
I especially want to thank all of our team members who worked with the RHT Festival, and especially those who worked Sunday and dismantle all of the temporary facilities to prepare Sha Tin for racing customers on Monday.
We have our Easter Monday race meeting tomorrow, with a total of 10 races on the card, including our first griffin race this season. The eighth race is the Nam Long Shan Handicap and is a Class 2 event over 1200m of the C+3 course. A very competitive field of 11 are assembled for this and the pace is likely to be fast. Magic Legend, unbeaten in three starts here, has shown some very good speed but will have company. Racing Supernova is drawn wide but will have to work his way across. Blocker Dee is likely to track them well on the rail. Strathmore and Pablosky are likely to be prominent too. Line Seeker, with apprentice Matthew Poon aboard, could also be forwardly placed. Key Witness, Turf Sprint and Lucky Ever should be outpaced in the early running.
Line Seeker gets a very key ten pounds off with Matthew Poon engaged to ride. With a draw in barrier one, he seems very well positioned in this race and is a major win and place chance for me. But my main choice is Magic Legend, who is perfect since arriving in Hong Kong and should get another good trip on Monday. Both Racing Supernova and Strathmore are placing chances taking a step back into Class 2. Verbinsky is also a placing chance off a brief freshening and adding blinkers for the first time, though he has been most proficient at Happy Valley.
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