A total of 69,916 racegoers flooded Sha Tin, with Happy Valley drawing an additional 10,775, to bring the total attendees for the Longines Hong Kong International Races to 80,691. It is the highest attendance number since 2018.
“I personally think it was one of the best, if not the best, Longines Hong Kong International Races and an incredible week,” said the HKJC’s chief executive officer Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges. “Starting with the Longines International Jockeys’ Championship, it was an amazing success. Today, we hoped to create a highlight and I personally think everything went to perfection.
“When one looks purely at the results, it was a tremendous success for Hong Kong horses but our overseas horses also ran really well. When you talk to the overseas owners, even if their horses finished second or third, they say it was a wonderful experience to come to Hong Kong and support the meeting.
“This meeting was broadcast into 29 countries live and in Hong Kong, we saw tremendous attendance figures with overall attendance of 80,000. We also had 6,511 visitors from the Mainland, which is a record–40% more than we had last year.”
Locally trained horses swept three of the four HKIR–Romantic Warrior (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), G1 Longines Hong Kong Cup, Ka Ying Rising (NZ) (Shamexpress {NZ}), G1 Longines Hong Kong Sprint, and Voyage Bubble (Aus) (Deep Field {Aus}), G1 Longines Hong Kong Mile. British raider Giavellotto (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) landed the G1 Longines Hong Kong Vase, the first win at the ‘Turf World Championships’ for Great Britain since 2012.
Added Engelbrecht-Bresges, “When you look at the sporting performances, Romantic Warrior is the best 2000m horse in the world. It was an absolutely dominant performance, he showed that he is absolutely world-class and to win this race (Longines Hong Kong Cup) for the third time is an incredible effort. He has now broken the world prize-money record of Golden Sixty (Aus) (Medaglia d’Oro) with total prize-money of HK$177 million (£17,849,886/€21,528,584/$22,753,164/A$35,611,075), which is an amazing achievement.
“It was a very good win by Giavellotto. It was the first time since 2012 for a British horse and with Ka Ying Rising, he had tremendous competition from another Hong Kong horses [Victor The Winner (Aus) (Toronado {Ire})], which disrupted his rhythm, but he is an amazing sprinter. Voyage Bubble has shown how good he is and I think it was a tremendous performance from the runner-up [Soul Rush (Jpn) (Rulership {Jpn})].”
Turnover reached HK$1,716.3 million (£173,090,614/€208,754,294/$220,628,571/A$345,305,094), including a commingling record of HK$473.8 million (£47,783,215/€57,628,494/$60,906,494/A$95,324,566)–an increase of 10% on last year’s Longines HKIR.
“Our strategy to bring the best races from Hong Kong and show them overseas is really proving a great success with our races today for the first time under the World Pool banner, which shows our racing product is extremely well received,” he said.
“Today is not about the turnover. Today is about the sport–it was a fantastic spectacle. The crescendo was the fireworks to close this wonderful meeting. We have one new racing fan in Sir Alex [Ferguson]. He was absolutely enthused about Hong Kong and what he saw, so he promised me to come back.
“This meeting attracts a global audience, global recognition and this reflects positively on Hong Kong.
“We would like to thank all the owners, trainers, jockeys who have brought their horses here because we can make this a global event only if we have the support of the owners, trainers and jockeys from overseas.
“I want to thank our tremendous teams because of the work they do behind the scenes to make Hong Kong such a wonderful place to visit and to be able to connect to the world as a vibrant, world-class city.”
