Historic Hong Kong Sweep at Sha Tin

[Wandering Eyes]

HONG KONG–A crowd of 96,388 gathered on a crisp December afternoon Sunday to witness a series of firsts at the Longines Hong Kong International Races.

When Glorious Forever (GB) (Archipenko) crossed the line first in the G1 Longines Hong Kong Cup under a head’s-up and tactically perfect ride from Wednesday’s Longines IJC champ Silvestre de Sousa, it marked the first time in the history of the event that horses based in Hong Kong had swept all four races. World’s top-rated miler Beauty Generation (NZ) (Road to Rock {Aus}) and Mr Stunning (Aus) (Exceed and Excel {Aus}) successfully defended their titles in the G1 Mile and G1 Sprint, respectively, but in a particularly strong year for the locally based stayers, it was the narrow victory from Exultant (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire})–just the third in the race by a Hong Kong-based horse–that paved the way.

“This is a dream result and it is extremely satisfying to see the depth and quality of Hong Kong horses rising to the fore to win four Group 1 races against top-class overseas challengers,” said Hong Kong Jockey Club Chief Executive Officer Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges. “It is an amazing achievement and I will stress again that we have only 0.7% of the world’s horse population here in Hong Kong.”

This year’s HKIR attracted 24 horses from six overseas jurisdictions, including runners trained by the likes of Andre Fabre, Chris Waller, Sir Michael Stoute and Aidan O’Brien and owned by such global giants as His Highness the Aga Khan, Godolphin, Juddmonte and Coolmore.

“If you look at the quality of horses we have seen today, we have to be very satisfied,” Engelbrecht-Bresges said. “We had 21 individual Group 1 winners and seven horses rated 120 or above; Japan sent a very strong team of nine contenders and we are extremely happy that we have again attracted horses from some of the world’s top class trainers.”

Second-season conditioner Frankie Lor won not only his first HKIR event with Mr Stunning, but a second with Glorious Forever about two hours later. Karis Teetan (Mr Stunning) and de Sousa (Glorious Forever) added their first HKIR victories to their already impressive CVs.

Attendance for Sunday’s races was a little more than 2,000 more than last year, while turnover for the 10-race program was HK$1.605 billion (£161.3 million/€180.2 million/A$285.1 million/US$205.3 million). Commingling turnover was HK$258 million.

“This is our highest turnover ever for this day, which is a tremendous result,” Engelbrecht-Bresges said. “And commingling was a record, too, with a figure of HK$258 million being 30% more than last year. That total does not include more than HK$215 million turnover which was bet in Japan on the four international races, and this all shows that there is a great international interest in Hong Kong racing among customers across the globe.

He added, “Offering world-class sport is essential to help racing grow and one of the innovations that is coming out of this tremendous commingling turnover is that we will have the World Pool invested here in Hong Kong, which shows the liquidity we have in our pools and the confidence in our technology.”

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