Happy Valley Racecourse represents a key part of our racing history here in Hong Kong. Races were first held at the track more than 160 years ago and nowadays it has developed as one of the most recognisable city racetracks in the world, being especially famous for its night racing - providing racegoers with the unique spectacle of horses speeding around the floodlit track surrounded by sky-scrapers.
In recent years, the Club has taken the iconic venue forward and has successfully incorporated a new image for Happy Valley, infusing a chic and stylish element to the racing venue, and creating a popular destination for younger professionals. Now everyone not only can enjoy fascinating races at the Valley, they can also enjoy the engaging bustle of the Beer Garden and great musical performances in the company of friends and colleagues all soaking up the party atmosphere there on midweek evenings.
The introduction of the Happy Wednesday brand, in my view, represented our dedication to rejuvenating horse racing and attracting a younger generation of fans to join in and enjoy the sport. With additional on-course activities, themed settings and performances available to our racegoers, I’m pleased to see that the Happy Wednesday brand is now hugely popular among both locals and foreigners who come to the Valley to enjoy an exquisite racing experience.
Apart from themed races, as part of our Racecourse Master Plan project, we also renovated our racecourse facilities at Happy Valley to create new venues targeted at different customer segments. The re-opening of adrenaline and the opening of The Gallery this season offered some stylish venues and sociable environments for our customers to connect with each other. Tailor-made services such as iPad borrowing and the interactive betting console IBU were implemented at The Gallery and at adrenaline respectively. Complementing the new racing software Race Simulator App, we are sure that these innovations all better suit the needs and preference of our younger customers, as they are a closer match to their technology-savvy lifestyles.
Considering that both the adrenaline and The Gallery being in service in the second half of the season, we are satisfied with our customers’ responses. In average, we have a total of about 14,500 racegoers joining our Happy Valley night meeting on-course this season, which saw a modest growth of three per cent when compared to the corresponding figure three seasons ago. If you look at it from the turnover perspective, “Happy Wednesday” has brought extra synergy and momentum to our steady boost in racing turnover, as we had 31 Valley night meetings this season whose turnovers exceeded the HK$800 million mark, including 18 of them which even surpassed HK$900 million.
Given to these attendance and turnover figures, I think what we are seeing is an encouraging achievement, evidently reflecting the success of our new direction. All in all, what we aim is just to take our customers’ appreciation of racing to another level, providing them with a satisfying experience. Hopefully they all are happy with our “Happy Wednesday” brand and other new interactive racing experiences, and will continue to give us their support in the future.
Tonight our racegoers, whether for our new patrons or long-time racing supporters, will all have one last chance to have a great night of fun in the Valley before the summer break as we will host our Happy Wednesday Finale for this season. As usual, we have arranged a host of on-course programmes. Please also remember to visit and click “Like” on our Happy Valley Racing Facebook Fan Page before coming to the racecourse, as you can then get a free pint of beer at the Beer Garden, while stocks last. So please make sure you arrive at the Valley early tonight.
We will also host a racing quiz game in the Beer Garden. Celebrity owners such as Johnson Lam of Ambitious Dragon, Johnny Wong of Joy And Fun, and Allen Shi of Mr Award will be with us to host the game, and present souvenirs prizes and cash vouchers to all winners. All these prizes are sponsored by the Hong Kong Racehorse Owners Association.
Meanwhile, our eight races this evening have a very close linkage with the HKROA, as they are all named after the winners of the Hong Kong Racehorse Owners Association Trophy in the last eight years. Among them, it includes Bulldozer who won this trophy race in July 2007, and himself amassed a total of six victories and over HK$3.5 million of prize money in his career here.
Our last Valley race this season will be named after this formerly Dennis Yip-trained horse, and it will be a competitive Class 2 event over 1800m. Due to the fact as there is no definite leader in this race, the expected slow pace should favour horses in the front of the field. Emperor Claudius is the most likely leader and with the position advantage he will be a place chance for me. Rio Willie, Perfect Cheers and Cartoon Fay Fay should be well placed, with Perfect Cheers being the best chance to make use of the forward position for a place chance. Distill and Osvaldo are my two favourites in this race. Both of them will be coming off the pace and need some luck. But Osvaldo is working very well. He can produce very fast last sectionals and he also performs well over this distance. Distill is an upcoming three-year-old who should further improve and is bred to handle the extra distance!
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