It was great to see so many of you at Sha Tin on Sunday for our season opening race meeting Sunday. Given the sweltering heat, I have to say the turnover of HK$833 million and the attendance of 49,400 were both very encouraging. In fact, we were quite lucky with the weather, as the sticky heat gave way to severe thunderstorms and rainfall later in the day, but only after the races had ended and most of our racing fans had already headed home.
Again we rode a bit of early-season luck on Monday night, as typhoon Koppu skirted past Hong Kong. The storm and gale-force winds caused only minimal damage to our facilities at the racecourses, loosening a few trackside railings in Sha Tin which our staff have already reinstalled. So I'm pleased to say that our first night race meeting of the season at Happy Valley this evening will go ahead as planned.
During the summer break we've done quite a lot of upgrading work at Happy Valley Racecourse, as we have in previous close seasons. Apart from the renovation of the balcony on the second floor of the public stand and the two Owners' Boxes in Members Stand I, we have also upgraded the Diamond Vision screen at Happy Valley in the off-season, extending its length from 35 metres to 47 metres. This latest upgrade will enable us to simultaneously display two sets of live images during races, and the number of formatting combinations and odds information to be chosen for display on the screen. We believe these added-up functions will certainly enhanced racegoers' racing experience.
For those of you who like to enjoy watching your racing from home, there will continue to be an extensive range of live racing and preview programmes. Our live racing broadcasts will again be carried by aTV Home/World Channel, and the HD aTV Channel. After Sunday's meeting, I've learnt that the users of HD aTV Channel have expressed a lot of favourable feedback for its excellent image quality and the availability of both large and small screens to view different camera angles during the races. So I hope you will continue giving these racing programmes your strong support this season.
By the way, thousands of financial professionals from around the world arrived Hong Kong to attend the Swift International Banking Operations Seminar this week. Taking this opportunity, the Standard Chartered Bank has chosen the Happy Valley Racecourse to host a party for over 200 VIP guests, who represent some of the major financial institutions in the world. This manifests once again that our racecourse and horseracing is a perfect corporate entertainment activity and I hope these top financial professionals would have a great time in the racecourse and enjoy the excitement of night racing at Happy Valley this evening.
Let's get back to the races. Tonight marks the start of the new season's CSL Million Challenge and again those Happy Valley performers will have the chance to contest for the HK$1 million jackpot, before the series to conclude in February next year. Among the eight races on the card at Happy Valley tonight, I will be focusing my attention on the performances of First Baby in the South Bay Handicap (1st Section). Having drawn nicely to start the race from Gate 1, I hope this favourable factor would help this six-year-old horse to settle well for a final dash in the straight. But from a value perspective, Amazing Fortune and Holiday Sun will probably be two other interesting propositions to add in this race.
I also expect a good showing from Fingers Crossed in the Chung Hom Kok Handicap. This Paul O'Sullivan-trained runner had a consistent performance in 1,200m race at Happy Valley, which he snatched a winner and three place finishes in five previous starts. He will be starting the race from Gate 1 and partnered by apprentice Derek Leung tonight. Let's see if he can continue to perform well in this distance. In the meantime,the South Bay Handicap (2nd section) and Middle Bay Handicap are two other open races tonight, but I think Sohna and Mighty Sun should be in the run in these two events respectively.
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