As regular readers will know by now, when I review any international meeting it isn’t all about the action – I like to try and give you a taste of the day should you ever fancy a visit – and make a comparison between wherever I am lucky enough to be – and racing back home in the UK.
Suffice to say that (presumably) thanks to a Tote monopoly and the riches the Hong Kong Jockey club take in their cut going back into racing, we are talking about a constantly changing racecourse (for the better), top-notch modern facilities, unlimited data to help the customer find the winners, and the key word – affordability.
With Sha Tin and Happy Valley both owned by the HKJC there are no shareholders looking to take their piece of the pie unlike we have, with the overall mantra seemingly to get customers interested in the sport, both on and off course, and then give them the best possible experience to make them want to quickly come back for more.
Cost
Of course they have better (and more expensive) hospitality options for those who want that sort of thing, but the rank and file like you and me can get in on the biggest day of the year to a section with a decent view for about £1 (sometimes tourist entry is free with your passport) which includes a free baseball cap – and that compares VERY favourably to the £95 needed for Royal Ascot (cheaper options start at £29 but the view isn’t good), or Cheltenham at £51 for the Best Mate enclosure.
Lest we forget, the cost of living here is higher than the UK from what I can see, so it’s not a case of “poor country low prices” by any stretch of the imagination – but it does seem to be the more people wanting a piece of the action, the worse it gets for the customer.
Racecards are £1.50, food halls abound as you would expect, with plenty of meal choices to suit most palates and budgets, but you can get something to eat for as little as £4 (and that’s chicken curry and rice, not a sandwich) and a beer for £2 – while K-Pop legend Rain (of Rainism and Love Story fame), performed some of his biggest hits live to encourage the next generations into the fold.
With 20 or more specialist publications in Hong Kong just for racing, as well as coverage in all the dailies, it feels as if Hong Kong feeds and nurtures the golden goose for the long-term, while we attempt to throttle ours as quickly as possible in the hunt for a quick buck.
Race Day
On to the racing, and we got here at 9.30am (first race 12.25pm) to settle into the press room (by the way, they also do that better here – a happy journalist writes a positive story, its psychology), and relax while the handicaps were run in the build-up to the first of the big ones, with the Longines Hong Kong Vase due off at 2.10pm (race 4).
Andrea Atzeni started the day with a 6.5/1 winner to put the Europeans in a positive mood (sadly I didn’t have a bet), though it did encourage me to take a bit more interest in race two.
Naturally (can you guess?), that means that my bets on Ryan Moore (Endeared), Alexis Badel (King Show), and Fight Time (Andrea Atzeni) reaped a massive reward of sweet FA with local hero Zac Purton strolling home on Packing Angel, and Ryan the best of the Europeans back in third.
Seeing nothing better in the third (Alexi Pouchin placed on King Profit), my hopes were not quite so high as we moved on to the better contests.
Without A Fight
As you will know, I had nailed my colours to the mast of Australian challenger and 2023 Melbourne Cup winner Without A Fight (followed by Luxembourg) for this particular contest, though I cannot pretend I ever believed it was the easiest to solve.
Those who got up early on a Sunday morning will have noticed that I would have struggled to have been any more inaccurate, with my main selection travelling like a winner throughout – before finding very little when asked and coming home second last.
Luxembourg was a better fifth, earning over £84,000 in the process, but hats off to Marco Botti and Oisin Murphy who won this pretty easily with Giavellotto, beating the Haggas-trained Dubai Honour into second.
In my defence, that was his first Group One win at the fourth attempt though as he is/was rated 119, perhaps I should have given him a bit of a shout.
As for the ride, that won’t be beaten this afternoon after Oisin found himself blocked and with nowhere to go before the gaps finally arrived, which he shot through for a fairly comfortable if a fraction lucky success.
Sprint Race
Next up we had the Sprint and I will happily confess – I was hoping to see the crowning of a new superstar in Ka Ying Rising who has been the talk of the town – and was sent off priced accordingly.
Whether he is the next big thing, I will leave you all to decide, but he won, he collected £1,464,788 in prize money, and has now won a Group One at the first attempt.
There was a heart-in-mouth moment as the pack closed late on, but he held on for a half-length success and looked to me as if he needs a break after his 10th start of the year, stretching all the way back to a second here on the 1st of January.
He may or may not have idled in front, and you can ignore the whip waving of Zac Purton who I doubt made much contact – he just didn’t career clear as we all hoped, but a win is a win, leaving a Breeders’ Cup winner over 15l lengths behind him at the line.
Likely to be campaigned very differently next year now they know just how good he is, expect a different horse in 2025 when I think he can carry all before him, with a few races abroad very much a possibility.
There is every chance that us media bigged him up out of all proportion to a level he would struggle to live up to, but the fact is he has won his last eight races now, and I remain fairly confident we have not seen the best of him yet.
Hong Kong Mile
Next on the Group One list we had the Longines Hong Kong Mile, and I was scrambling around in the dark pre-race with horses from Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, France and the UK – and if you think you can work out the collateral form of numerous continents, you are a better man (or woman) than I am.
I was happy enough with Japanese three-year-old Jantar Mantar who looked particularly well on the way to the start, but in the end he finished a well-beaten 13th of 14 at the line.
Watching the replay, he got into a barging match with the odd bite thrown with one of his rivals where he came off worse, after which he was eased off and failed to give his true running.
He will learn from that, but the locals were the ones cheering loudest after Voyage Bubble, the surprise favourite at 2.6, strolled home under James McDonald by a length and a quarter that could have been considerably further, though I doubt I would back him in the replay, I just didn’t see that coming.
Go big or go home!
One race to go, betting balance firmly in the red (not unexpected to be fair), and an odds-on shot in the lucky last – go big or go home!
Go big it was, and through my rose-tinted spectacles, I feel Romantic Warrior (James McDonald having a good day) was the easiest winner on the card at odds of 1.1, putting a length and a half of daylight between himself and nearest rival Liberty Island, though I backed the winner, the second (each way at 8.3/1) and the forecast, leaving me just about even on the day.
You could call the winner a furlong out as James took the salutes of the crowd a long way from home, and its long odds-on now that it’s only a matter of time before he joins the ranks of the Hong Kong jockeys.
Conclusions:
How many more years will I come here and not realise that local horses are as good or better than any in the racing World?
It is always tempting to stick to horses you know, even if I did miss the Marco Botti beast, but the cold hard truth is simpler – on home territory, locally trained horses can be and are as good or better than the majority we send over, possibly as an afterthought, and if we want to start taking home more of the huge prizes on offer, we need to target the best horses – anything less will not prove good enough.
