I believe most of you will have learnt by now about the list of horses we've selected to take part in the BMW Champions Mile on 6 May. I'm delighted to see some top international horsemen sending their strong runners for this premier mile event, with eight of the 14 entrants being G1 winners.
These include two world-leading owners from the Middle East: Prince Khalid Abdullah who will send Dubai Duty Free winner and Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Mile runner-up Cityscape for another tilt in Hong Kong; and Sheikh Al Maktoum's Godolphin stable, which will have Godolphin Mile winner African Story as its representative this time. Adding to champion South African trainer Mike de Kock’s runner Musir and top Australian handler Peter Moody’s runner King’s Rose, I would say this is a very good field, making the Champions Mile a rather attractive international event from every viewpoint.
For the home team our flagbearer will be Ambitious Dragon, after his trainer Tony Millard decided to shift his target from the APQEII Cup to this race. This is an understandable move as it will give the horse an extra week to refresh and prepare for the next race after his unsuccessful attempt at Meydan. Given the emphatic performances by this reigning Horse of the Year in races of shorter distance this season, I believe he will have no problem coming back to the mile distance.
Today at Sha Tin Racecourse we will be celebrating our 8th Hong Kong Jockey Club Community Day and we've invited a number of senior Government officials to join us, along with representative of non-governmental organisations and the many other community partners with whom we work year-round to meet community needs. We have hosted this raceday annually since 2005 to highlight the Club's strong commitment to serving the community and our long-standing and successful relationships with these different partners. I hope they find the racing an exciting experience and enjoy the various on-course activities we've arranged for them.
It's the continued success of Hong Kong's world-class horse racing and the Club's not-for-profit business model that makes all our community donations possible, so it's important that people appreciate this indivisible link and the role that the Jockey Club plays as a “Force for Good” in local society. Over the past five years alone, our Charities Trust has pledged donations of more than HK$6.6 billion to support some 530 different community projects, including record donations of HK$1.6 billion last year.
More importantly still, we have been developing ever-closer relationships with many of these community groups in recent years, which has enabled us to take a more proactive role in addressing some of the future challenges that Hong Kong is facing, such as the ageing population trend. For example, we initiated the HK$380 million CADENZA project in 2006 with the support of a number of community partners, to pioneer new approaches to elderly care and encourage the public to take a more positive attitude to the elderly. At today's Community Day event, we plan to announce another major new initiative in partnership with Government to help our senior citizens lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.
By joining us at Sha Tin today, you can not only show your support for these important community projects but also bid farewell to our legendary sprinter Sacred Kingdom, who ran his last race at the beginning of this month and has now been officially retired. We will host a special farewell in the Parade Ring after Race 5 for this wonderful champion, who was ranked leading world sprinter for three years in a row. His career has seen many ups and downs, but his sensational performances have brought many fond memories for local racing fans and his owner Mr Sin. While I know you will miss this great horse a lot, I'm sure you will be delighted like me to know that he can soon enjoy a well-deserved retirement in Australia.
By the way, some of the new stars in our local horse ranks – including Go Baby Go, Wah May Star and G-One Winning, who have all shown very promising talents in their Hong Kong careers so far, will be in action again today on the Sha Tin turf. I will be interested to see how they perform.
For the day’s main feature event – the Hong Kong Jockey Club Community Trophy, it has attracted some very good horses in this Class 2 event over 1000m straight. The pace is expected to be fast and with the heavy rain yesterday, I am not sure if the usual track bias which favours horses with high draws is relevant today. I expect that the track will dry out a bit during the day and we would probably run on a good to yielding course with a potential upgrade later in the day if we have no rain, and therefore I am not concerned about a potential heavy track in my suggestions. Blaze King and Go Baby Go are the likely leaders with Oriental Prosper just behind them. Blaze King is working well and coming back in Class 2 should help him to be in the first three. Last time Go Baby Go was holding on by head to win over Sir Eagles, who is drawn in Gate 2 in this race and both horses are live win and place aspirants. Bear Hero seems to come back to his best and is working very well. He has a good chance to win the race being a 1000m ST specialist with four wins over the distance.
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