I hope all of you are enjoying a pleasant summer.
On Tuesday, our Chairman, Dr. Simon Ip and I were in Deauville for our annual reciprocal races with our friends in Deauville, the Group 3 Prix Gontaut-Biron Hong Kong Jockey Club and the Prix du Hong Kong Jockey Club. Prior to racing, we both visited Haras Saint Leonard, owned by the Wertheimer Family, and saw many of their magnificent broodmares, yearlings and foals. Among the mares enjoying their time there is the great Goldikova and we got the chance to see her too. Of course, Hong Kong hosts two races celebrating the close relationship between our jurisdictions, with the France Galop Cup and Le French May Trophy run in the spring at Happy Valley.
First Sitting won the featured Prix Gontaut-Biron Hong Kong Jockey Club for trainer Chris Wall, and was partnered to victory by long-time Hong Kong-based jockey Gerald Mosse, giving even an extra connection to our racing on the day. Garlingari, seventh in last year’s LONGINES Hong Kong Vase, was second. The much-fancied European Champion Almanzor was fifth of six, but only beaten 3.5 lengths in his first start of the season following a long spell. It was very disappointing, but to put it in context, trainer Jean Claude Rouget’s barn was struck with a virus and Almanzor was one of the horses which caught the virus. We will have to wait and see if he continues on after this.
In July we learned that Happy Valley Racecourse received a 2017 Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site. TripAdvisor has nearly 400 million monthly visitors and more than 500 million reviews and opinions shared by site users. Happy Valley Racecourse, home to our truly unique Happy Wednesday events, is rated as one of the top “things to do” in Hong Kong, and as of my last check, 94% of user-generated reviews, which are the basis for the Certificate of Excellence, rated their experience at our city racecourse as either excellent or very good. My many thanks to our Jockey Club staff who continue to make a visit to our racecourses so special and it is particularly encouraging to see the dividends of our long-term Racecourse Master Plan.
Our annual Pre-Season Carnival will be held next Saturday, 26 August, at Sha Tin and our racing season will begin anew on 3 September. Many of our jockeys have been riding in other destinations to keep in top shape for the new season. Among them, Karis Teetan and Douglas Whyte both enjoyed successful visits to Japan, Keith Yeung had a win and some placings in America when riding for trainer Dale Romans and even our apprentice Matthew Poon landed a phenomenal six wins in Singapore over just two weeks. Some on social media, and even one newspaper in Singapore, identified Matthew as an Australian. As we all know, he is a product of Hong Kong and our outstanding Apprentice Jockeys’ School and it has been great to see him have such success in a short period while keeping fit in the summer.
I hope you continue to enjoy the remaining weeks of summer and look forward to the new season ahead!
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