Author Archives: KH Lau

Saturday’s Sha Tin meeting means we have effectively reached the halfway point of the 2019/2020 racing season and the last five months have tested all of us. As I have often stated in this Blog, racing can never be immune to major events in wider society. That point has been driven home, first by public…

Wednesday at Happy Valley marks the fourth race meeting since we introduced special measures in response to coronavirus and the situation is evolving daily as valuable new information is received. With that in mind, I would like to start with an apology that all our Off-Course Betting Branches are now closed for business until further…

Racing has produced all types of headlines since I came to Hong Kong more than 20 years ago but this last week has been a very unusual one indeed. Special measures restricting attendance to owners, officials and those with prior restaurant bookings meant that fewer than 10,000 people were at Sha Tin for Chinese New…

Chinese New Year has dawned with another new challenge for Hong Kong but it is important to make several key points about our approach to the outbreak of coronavirus. The first is to reiterate that our decision to continue racing with special arrangements in place has not been taken lightly. We have performed systematic risk…

The decision to go ahead to continue racing with the Chinese New Year race meeting was not taken lightly. We have been closely following these developments of the novel Coronavirus and we are all well aware of public concerns over the health risk associated with crowds and the potential impact on the upcoming CNY Raceday.…

The margins between glory and frustration can be incredibly fine at the top level of any sport and Sunday’s Sha Tin card was a case in point. Seven of ten races were won by a neck or less; John Moore was beaten in photo finishes to both G1 contests; Joao Moreira rode six beaten favourites…

It was a case of doubles all round for jockeys and trainers at Happy Valley this week. Matthew Poon, Silvestre de Sousa and Karis Teetan all scored twice, Jimmy Ting continued his Valley hot streak with a pair and Francis Lui recorded his ninth double of the season to maintain his record of being on…

There were no shortage of positive stories emerging from our Saturday card at Sha Tin. Turnover was notably strong – helped by a competitive card of full fields – and although the next quarter will offer more challenges it is great to see such positive signs as Chinese New Year approaches. The action on the…

Hong Kong’s challenges come in various forms at present and the latest is an outbreak of Wuhan pneumonia which has affected dozens of citizens this week. Episodes such as this are always very worrying and it seems that further detailed tests are ongoing to identify what is believed to be a new coronavirus strain. The…

The road to the BMW Hong Kong Derby is gradually taking shape and, with the big race now just over 10 weeks away, there is precious little margin for error for those with genuine Classic ambitions. A potential Derby winner needs a rare blend of qualities but the skill a trainer needs to ensure a…