Monthly Archives: 02/2020

And so we move into the second month with special measurements to minimise the risk of coronavirus in place. Sporting bodies around the world are feeling the impact – with the JRA among those to impose strict attendance limits this week – but having acted early we can now consider plans to aid a loyal…

A month has passed since the Club started to impose special measures to minimise the risk of coronavirus and, although we remain vigilant, we are also cautiously optimistic that some services can be restored in the coming weeks. Moving on to Sunday’s racing at Sha Tin, it was a pleasure to see Vincent Ho and…

With so much going on here at home in Hong Kong and at the Asian Racing Conference in Cape Town, this has been the sort of week to make you wish to be in two places at once. Technology has not yet extended to creating a Jockey Club Time Machine but it has enabled us…

And so we move on through another notable week at home and abroad. The 38th Asian Racing Conference is under way in Cape Town with significant topics on the agenda but the current situation demands that I stay in Hong Kong to help oversee another very important phase in our plan to keep racing. The…

The ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances is one of the things that has made Hong Kong one of the world’s great cities and racing is adapting to some difficult but highly necessary changes at the moment. With attendance restricted to owners, trainers, jockeys and essential officials on a night which saw Stronger break…

On the direction of government, we have reduced the gathering of crowds on race days. As a result, attendance for fixtures on 12, 16 and 19 February will be restricted to jockeys, trainers, officials with race day duties and owners with horses running on the card. I hope for the understanding of our fans but…

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…