At Wednesday’s Happy Valley race meeting we saw home-grown trainers winning all of the evening’s eight races, including Manfred Man who notched the evening’s feature HKG3 January Cup with Pleasure Gains. As expected it was a hotly contested race and the runners produced an exciting blanket finish approaching the wire. All credit to the ground saving trip made by Douglas Whyte, as Pleasure Gains got his sixth success at Happy Valley in a span of less than 18 months. It’s pleasing to see this International Sale graduate has kept showing improvement.
Happy Valley has been the cradle of many of Hong Kong’s past champion horses and horsemen. This historic racecourse was fundamental to the early development of Hong Kong racing as well as the Club. Happy Valley and Sha Tin, which opened in 1978, are now internationally-known landmark racecourses. Both of them rank among the best of their kind in the world.
The same is true of the Club. Now in its 130th anniversary season, the Club is firmly in place as one of the leaders in global racing, and just as importantly, it is established as the largest charity contributor in Hong Kong and one of the most sought-after membership clubs in the region. I would like to encourage you to visit our special websites and to watch the dozens of videos featuring individuals ranging from horsemen to racing executives, beneficiaries to elite sportsmen. Each person tells their own stories about the Club as a world-class racing operator, its vast contributions to the community and incomparable social role in Hong Kong.
If you drop by Causeway Bay in the coming week, you can also go to Hysan Place and visit our 130th Anniversary Exhibition that commenced yesterday. We would like to share with the community the development as well as achievements of the Club over the decades. Through this interactive exhibition you can find out more about the major contributions the Club has made throughout its history, and also take part in our game on site for the chance to take home our 130th anniversary themed merchandise. To mark our anniversary, we will also display a Ren Ma sculpture as designed by renowned cross-media local artist Simon Ma at the entrance of Hysan Place during the week. The sculpture had been specially created by Ma to communicate the universal ideals of morality, kindness and community through artistic articulation. So make sure you don’t miss the chance to watch and show your appreciation to this stunning art work.
I would also encourage you to engage directly with our celebration by coming to our 130th Anniversary Raceday today. We will officially commence our anniversary celebration and hold a ceremony during the race meeting at Sha Tin racecourse this afternoon, so come along and enjoy the milestone occasion and the exciting racing. We’ve also set up exhibition booths at the public and the members’ stands, and we will also be offering special food treats and an opening show that will start at noon at the Parade Ring. It’s certainly going to be a happy and a very memorable day for all of us, our community partners and racing fans, and I hope you all will enjoy our arrangements.
For those more experienced racing fans, you can also have the chance to meet again the popular former jockey Basil Marcus. He will be at Sha Tin as he has come all the way from South Africa to join our celebration today. Actually we had also invited fellow South African Felix Coetzee to come today but unfortunately he informed us Wednesday that he could not made the trip to Hong Kong as for personal reasons. Hopefully we will have another chance to meet Felix soon in the future.
Having said that, I believe many of you will still offer your warm welcome to Basil. He had a glorious career in Hong Kong and was crowned champion jockey on seven occasions during his 12 years riding here. After hanging up his boots he trained in both South Africa and also Singapore, and is now assisting his son Adam who is developing his training career at home. I know that many of you will be thrilled to see this fans favourite, so I hope you will be lucky enough and bump into him today.
The 10 races on today’s card appear to be equally exciting. I will turn my attention to the Hong Kong Jockey Club 130th Anniversary Cup, which is run as race 4 today. It is a Class 2 event over 1200m with a rating band of 90 to 70, which makes some Class 3 horses eligible for this race. However, Choice Treasure with a rating of 76, is the only horse took up this opportunity to run in this race.
A total of six horses in the race are capable of leading or sitting just off the pace. The pressure they put on each other should generate a good-to-fast tempo which gives every horse a chance, even those who come off the pace especially if the leaders push each other too much to make the tempo even faster. Precision King, California Bounty and You Read My Mind should be the main pace influences in this race. Apache Spirit can take the box seat on the inside of Key Witness or I'm In Charge. Our Folks, Choice Treasure and Victorius should be well place. Let Me Go has to be careful for not to be raced wide and may be dropped back early and stay behind midfield besides Little Men. The widely drawn Dynamism may join Jazzy Feeling at the back.
Key Witness is working well and is my first choice in this race. He was ridden more forward than expected last time and only caught in the last 100m. He should be better placed this time but he will have to fight off his last start conqueror Let Me Go, as ridden by Joao Moreira. You Read My Mind finished off well in his last start and is another chance at least for a place here, as is Victorius and last not least Jazzy Feeling.
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