It's nice to see our Sa Sa Ladies Purse Day last Sunday enjoying such great success, as we recorded a season-high turnover of HK$958 million. On top of that, the attendance exceeded 80,000, which was 4,000 more than last year. A large number of the racegoers were ladies, and you could tell how much they were getting into the spirit of the occasion by the effort so many of them had put into finding stylish outfits and hats to match. I hope they all found the experience exciting and will come racing more often in the future.
On the subject of women, one of my female colleagues had a great honour bestowed on her earlier this week: the headmistress of our Apprentice Jockeys' School, Amy Chan, who was appointed one of five new East Asian Games Ambassadors to help promote this major event in Hong Kong in December.
I'm sure Amy is a very familiar figure to most of you, as she was one of Hong Kong's outstanding badminton players in the 1980s and '90s, winning numerous medals at international level. Since joining the Club as Headmistress of our Apprentice Jockeys' School in 2006, Amy and Racing Development Board consultant John Graham have together redesigned the entire training programme for our apprentices, injecting many valuable new elements, with a systematic and professional training programme for our racing trainees. The results have been spot-on. Our apprentice jockeys' performances have been outstanding in recent years, as demonstrated by the fact that Matthew Chadwick and Derek Leung both ranked in the top 10 of last season's jockey standings.
In addition, some of our apprentice trainees have enjoyed very good results during their overseas training in recent years. I heard that Vincent Ho, another talented young local rider now under indenture to trainer Lance O'Sullivan in New Zealand, have snatched 14 winners since August and currently stands 9th in the NZ jockeys' premiership, among over a hundred of riders. This is a very encouraging performance and I'm greatly looking forward to seeing him compete on home turf when he returns to Hong Kong.
Some of you might also be anxious to hear how Matthew Chadwick is getting on, following his nasty fall at Sha Tin last Sunday. Actually, he's fine and was discharged from the hospital on Monday evening, but as he suffered a head injury, specifically bruising to the left side of his face, we need to exercise caution about letting him get back into action too soon. Currently the earliest date he will be ready to resume riding is 25 October.
After Sunday's special day for the ladies, the menfolk will be especially interested in tonight's Happy Valley meeting, as we are staging the first of our special Oktoberfest evenings in the Beer Garden there. This is always a popular place for people to gather with their friends after work and share a beer or two, so we shall be running a number of special events there during the season to meet the interests of different customer segments.
Tonight the Beer Garden will have a Bavarian atmosphere as the Oktoberfest originates from this historic region of Germany. While we will be launching the festival with a 12-gun salute, you can taste authentic German beer and traditional food treats like roast pork knuckle, German sausages and pretzels, and have fun trying traditional Oktoberfest games like wood sawing and beer drinking contest. Mr Frank Burbach, the German Consul-General in Hong Kong, will also be joining our opening ceremony and I'm sure he will enjoy these special events and decorations we've arranged at the racecourse. So I hope you all will also come to Happy Valley tonight to enjoy the entertainment.
The eight races on the card look to be equally exciting, and I will be paying my special attention to Elite Fortune and O'Reilly Magic in the Ping Kong Handicap. Elite Fortune scored his first placing finish in Hong Kong, in his first start in a Class 4 event last month. He has a better preparation this time and I hope he will give another nice run. With his victory late last season, O'Reilly Magic proved the mile race at Happy Valley has been a suitable distance for him. He will be competing in the same distance tonight and I expect there will be an interesting duel between these two runners. However, Tremendous Plus also had a sound performance in his first-up at Sha Tin and I think he will be the outsider that is able to spoil the party in this event.
In the Ireland Trophy Handicap, Good Strike had a brilliant win in a 1000m race at Happy Valley three weeks ago, storming home in spectacular fashion. The horse will again be partnered by Keith Yeung and I think he will not be easy to beat this evening. David Ferraris' Good To Go won twice in the same distance in his career. Although he will be carrying top weight, I still expect him to finish close tonight.
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