Yesterday I attended a press conference announcing that international banking group Citi would sponsor the Club's Triple Crown series for the next three years starting in 2008. I'm really pleased that another prominent multinational business group has pledged its support to the Club and shown its appreciation of the important role of racing in Hong Kong.
I was also delighted to have a chat with former Club chairman Ronald Arculli, the part-owner of Hong Kong's only Triple Crown winner River Verdon, who attended the event to share his feelings of being a Triple Crown winning owner.
In the racing business, only a few people can ever be lucky enough to own a champion horse, so being the owner of a legendary Triple Crown winner is something you can only dream about. Yet I'm lucky enough to have had that chance when I was still in Germany.
The stud farm, Gestuet Zoppenbroich, which I used to work with, bred and owned a horse called Konigsstuhl in the late 1970s. In 1979, when the horse was a three-year-old, he amazingly won all three races in the German Triple Crown series, namely the Mehl-Mülhens-Rennen (German 2000 Guineas), Deutsches Derby, and Deutsches St. Leger. To this day, he remains the only Triple Crown winner in German history, just as River Verdon's 1994 feat has never been matched in Hong Kong.
I was still a soccer player at that time and just managed to watch the Deutsches St. Leger race on TV after playing a match, but my teammates and I went wild after seeing the horse win again and snatch the Triple Crown series.
After his retirement, Konigsstuhl became a popular and successful sire in both Germany and Europe. His greatest son - multiple Group One winner Monsun, is now one of the best stallions in the world. Monsun has sired Group One winners like Prince of Wales Stakes winner Manduro - a horse owned by my best friend George von Ullmann, Breeders' Cup Turf winner Shirocco, and Samum, the Deutsches Derby winner which also competed in our Hong Kong International Races in 2000.
Anyway, that's enough about German horses; let's go back to our races at Happy Valley tonight. Personally, I like Fifty Fifty and Beautiful Dreamer most as both horses had a very decent run last time a month ago which finished first and second respectively on the same course and respective distances.
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