This really is becoming one of the most competitive Hong Kong racing seasons in many respects and which makes for great theatre.
On the negative side, it also hauls in some bad baggage and petty politics which we can all do without.
Walking around with daggers in one’s back thrown out by the usual suspects is not a good look.
Leaving that negative crap behind, look at the Jockeys Championship which, even though, somewhat early days, right up there are Zac Purton, Dougie Whyte, Brett Prebble and Little Timmy Clark while nipping at their heels are Matty Chadwick, Tye Angland, Richard Fourie and even Howard Cheng who can have his moments- and not senior ones either.
The Trainers Table is just as crowded with John Size, John Moore, Tony Cruz, Ricky Yiu, Caspar Fownes, Dennis Yip and Richard Gibson all up there.
What does all this mean? Personally speaking, I would love to see some head-to-head challenges between jockeys and trainers. It just takes the current Jockeys Challenge further and introduces the players in racing to those new to the sport and an important first step in marketing the rudiments of how to place a bet- and on whom.
What the current “leader boards” also show is a much more level playing field though winning on the punt has become very very tough though, perhaps- though not as mind-blowingly shocking as some of the recent results in Oz that has had bookies cackling like Tiny Tim on crack and which brings to mind a horrible visual.
But back to Hong Kong and with the International Jockeys Challenge and International Races just a kiss away, all this competitiveness will make for tremendous races and finishes and for those who have yet to soak up the atmosphere and fun of The Beer Garden and Adrenaline going to have their minds blown. And which is why everything has added up and come together in a holistic manner. It’s no doubt why even without the pulling power of Brett Prebble on Wednesday and with his stock boosted after his very well deserved win in the Melbourne Cup, the turnover at Happy Valley was well over HK$900 million.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ihM9iBYU5M
Happy Valley’s Happy Wednesday has really become The Greatest Show in town and has become Hong Kong’s new, improved Lan Kwai Fong while the original area limps along like a flat beer at Al’s Diner. Again, it shows how much the HKJC is changing the face of racing in Hong Kong and how this landscape is metamorphosing almost on a weekly basis. Like any business in this fast-paced world where tomorrow is too late and keeping in touch with today’s consumers is a full-time job, it has to, especially at a time when casual race-goers are becoming regulars and demanding new ways of enjoying the sport via apps, venues and racing shows not comprising of talking heads and snippets of trackwork. Of course, these types of programming will continue, but at a different time and place as I now move gingerly to tomorrow’s card, which, bloody hell, is tough.
Many of the form horses are drawn out in the boonies which will still mean them starting well under the punters. Most Hong Kong punters follow jockeys and trainer-jockey combinations plus having the weirdest conspiracy theories. So, you can bet that the rides of Purton, Prebble and Whyte will all be unders and with many of them drawn off the track and, perhaps, stuck there for most of their journeys.
“Mate, how come I always get these outside barriers? Am not gonna run.”
Looking at the card, I see that one of my favourite horses- Best Win- takes it place in Race 10. He won’t have it easy with Flash Knight, Green Eagle and the lightly-weighted Plentiful being ridden by apprentice Dicky “Louie” Lui on it and who has won the last race on two consecutive weekends. It remains to be seen if local punters see this as “good feng shui” and back it hard. Elsewhere, Gerard Mosse and Weichong Marwing don’t seem to have many chances and even of they did, I really cannot follow them with their wayward riding tendencies and penchant for heading towards McDonald’s.
Weichong Marwing being escorted back to the track.
The jockeys and their horses I like at the moment are Dougie Whyte on Diamond Angel in Race 4 along with Scent Of Osmatnhus with Tye Angland up in the same race. Whyte’s other rides are drawn barriers 11,10,13,11,and then, mercifully 8, 4 and 8. Of these and despite the 13 barrier draw, I like his King Haradasun in Race 6 and Green Manner for Tony Cruz for whom he rode a double at Happy Valley on Wednesday.
Elsewhere, I like The Zac Attack in the first two races of the day and Race 9 and notice that Affluence Of Rain, which left the stable of David “Darth Vader” Ferraris for Caspar Fownes, has returned to the bosom of “Darth” and is in Race 7 with Wayward Weichong on it. If I were “Darth”, I would have refused to take it back on principle and ‘cos of the way the owners moved it- sneakily- but, a horse is a horse and “Darth” possibly sees something in it many others don’t.
A booking which made my eyes pop was Ben TH So on the David Hall-trained Berio which was responsible for the biggest- and most successful plunge of last season. So So has some “interesting”looking rides on Saturday and is one to watch and follow if the big money goes onto one of his rides. For some reason, those plunges rarely go down the toilet.
As I said, it’s an average looking card and with upsets looking to be the order of the day, so tread warily and don’t slip on any brinjals and make a chapatti of yourself.
The Guru
PS And now for a replay of the Terry and Danny Show.
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