I'm sure you were all very impressed with Viva Pataca's flawless performance in Sunday's Citi Hong Kong Gold Cup. It looked so easy as he romped past his opponents with a dazzling finish, winning in style to demonstrate once again that he undoubtedly Hong Kong's strongest current middle-distance runner.
It didn't surprise me to hear trainer John Moore's comments after the race, saying Viva Pataca was the best horse he had trained in the past 20 years. This convincing victory should provide great lead-up preparation for the horse, ahead of challenging for the US$5 million Dubai Sheema Classic next month. Let's hope he can put in another outstanding run there and complete a back-to-back victory for Hong Kong-trained horses at the Dubai World Cup meeting. It would show the world once again that our racing standard in Hong Kong is really top-class.
While I'm always pleased to see Hong Kong racing making international headlines, the Club gets involved in a lot of less-publicised local activities that give me just as much pleasure. Yesterday, I was happy to have the chance of celebrating the New Year of the Rat with 200 elderly people who are living alone in Tin Shui Wai, at a lunch gathering we arranged for them at Happy Valley Racecourse.
Sometimes it's easy to forget, when we're all busy enjoying the Chinese New Year celebrations with our families and friends, that there are many elderly single people out there in the community who have no families to celebrate with – so it really feels heartwarming to be able to bring some of the festive atmosphere into their lives. Many of our elderly guests had never been to Happy Valley Racecourse before, so that was also a fascinating experience for them. We also arranged an entertaining Chinese opera performance for all participants, and giving each of them a lai see to celebrate this festivity. They all had a happy afternoon there and were grateful for the hospitality given by the Club, as well as the good care by Club volunteers. Anyway, we had a great party with lots of fun, singing and laughter, and I really enjoyed hearing some of their memories of the old days in Hong Kong.
Although it doesn't quite go back to the "old days", the Happy Valley Million Challenge has been with us for a good few years now, having been introduced in 2003 to encourage our owners and trainers to race more quality horses at Happy Valley, and it's certainly produced some great memories of its own. I'm sure many of you can still remember well the brilliant performances of some of our city track specialists like Dashing Champion, Fruity Fruity and Easy over the past few seasons.
Tonight marks the end of this season's Happy Valley Million Challenge this year, and we already have an unbeatable new champion to crown in Elfhelm. It's rare but wonderful to see a horse reaching his career peak at the age of eight, which is what Elfhelm has done with his three wins and two places from just five runs this term. I'm looking forward to presenting the winner's cheque to the connections of this late-blooming champion.
With the winner of this season's Happy Valley Million Challenge decided, I'm also delighted to learn that telecommunication group HK CSL will become the series' title sponsor for the next three years, starting from 2008/09 racing season. I look forward to seeing this strategic partnership bringing more success to this special Happy Rally racing series in future. For the eight races on the card tonight, I will be very interested to see the performances of Money Man (Race 6) and Disguise (Race 8). Both horses ran second in their last runs at Happy Valley and I hope Darren Beadman and Oliver Doleuze will steer them to even better performances tonight.
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