On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of accompanying our HKSAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang when he paid a visit to our new Equestrian Pavilion in Penfold Park.
The Chief Executive and I visited the 120-degree curved Captivating Circular Theatre to experience the inspiring audiovisual effects there. Amazed by the equestrian backgrounds at Photo Fun Corner, Mr Tsang selected two of them and had a few photos taken on his own. When meeting a group of primary school students who were also visiting the Pavilion, he was pleased to entertain their autograph requests.
Before he left, Mr Tsang told me he was very impressed with the exhibits and I'm pleased that he also supported our plan of inviting school parties and community groups from Hong Kong's 18 districts to visit the Pavilion. This is a further means of promoting equestrian sport to the local community, and letting them get a feel of the Olympic atmosphere.
The Pavilion will be open to the public from November till May 2008, from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm every day except Monday. Admission is free for the entire period. And for tomorrow, it will be reserved for Club members and their families to enjoy the Equestrian Pavilion exhibits as well as three mini-competitions in dressage, cross-country and jumping.
Having been honoured with the title of Outstanding Contributor to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Equestrian Events, all of us at the Club are devoting our fullest efforts to making this unprecedented event a success. Through these exhibitions and activities, I hope that more people will come to appreciate the excitement and beauty of equestrian sport.
The equestrian events are the only Olympic sport to feature animals, and a strong partnership between rider and horse is critical to success, as is the quality of horses involved. This is also true of horse racing. This is why we organise the Hong Kong International Sale each year, as it offers our owners the chance to acquire quality unraced griffins that the Club has sourced from major yearling sales around the world.
With Australia battered by an equine influenza outbreak in recent months, we have separated this year's International Sale into two parts. The first instalment will be held next Saturday, 8 December, with 18 lots of unraced horses from Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States up for auction.
As these young horses will take part in a breeze-up tomorrow morning, I welcome our owners and Club members to come along with their children and enjoy a leisurely trackside breakfast, while seeing these potential stars of the future put through their paces. As for the general public, they will be able to meet racing stars and experience the excitement of the auction at the annual Hong Kong International Sale simply by participating in the Trackside Breakfast with the Stars on Saturday morning, 8 December at Sha Tin Racecourse.
Now back to our races today and personally, I would love to see how Pickett in Race 7, and both Industrial Marvel and the German-bred Top Honor in Race 9 will run in our races today, as all of them have decent and consistent performances for their recent runs on the all-weather track.
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