Last Wednesday night, after the finish of our evening races, there was an attempted robbery at one of our Off-Course Betting Branches in Sham Shui Po, in which four of our Club colleagues and a security guard working in the branch were injured by the assailant. The police were called immediately and made an arrest, and by the time I learned of the incident around midnight, senior staff from our security and betting divisions had already gone to the OCBB to find out more about what had happened and provide any necessary assistance to the branch employees.
Fortunately none of our staff sustained life-threatening injuries, although one of them required surgery the next morning and is still in hospital receiving treatment to arm and chest wounds. I went to visit him there on Thursday afternoon, and it was great to see that he still looked fine and was in good spirits. We chatted for a while and he told me more details of the robbery. The Club has provided training to staff members for handling emergency situations, and I think even if we have guidelines in place, it is equally important that how staff react in these circumstances, and I really highly praised how these betting branch staff members had managed this difficult moment. The Club will continue to render its assistance to these colleagues, and we all hope they will make a full recovery very soon.
It's difficult at this stage to know what drove the assailant decided to take this irrational behaviour, but I think no matter what the circumstances, one should never resort to illegal acts, and such behaviour can never be tolerated in society. If there are people out there who have grievances, they should make use of the proper channels for resolving them, instead of taking illegal actions, using insults, or behaving in a way that could be harmful to others.
Tomorrow at Sha Tin Racecourse a group of top Hong Kong runners will be contesting two of Hong Kong's Group One races – the Citi Hong Kong Gold Cup and Chairman's Sprint Prize – on set weight terms. They are events of sharp contrast to each other as the Gold Cup has been a core middle distance event in our racing calendar for many years, while the Chairman's Sprint Prize also similarly serves as one of the main target races for our elite sprinters. This should make it a very interesting day.
For these two black type events, I'll be paying my attention to the performances of Viva Pataca and Sacred Kingdom. Viva Pataca was unlucky in the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Cup and he ran a reasonable third when dropping back to a mile in the Citi Stewards' Cup. I will be expecting another decent performance from the seven-year-old Champion Stayer over the 2000M HK G1 event. In the Chairman's Sprint Prize, Sacred Kingdom should still be the one to beat. The world's leading turf sprinter ran a close fourth depsite being disadvantaged by racing on the far side of the 1,000m chute in the Centenary Sprint Cup last time. I believe the five-year-old should be benefited from that race and so be able to produce an improving performance tomorrow.
Among the other races, I will also be looking forward to see the performance of King Dancer in the Grand Delight Handicap. The three-year-old son of Danehill Dancer ran an eye-catching third in his first start in Hong Kong over 1400M. Let's see if he can deliver better performance when stepping up to the mile tomorrow.
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