Marquardt in Hong Kong: A Visit to Macau’s Taipa Racecourse

In 1984, when I was eight, my parents made a trip to Macau to visit a harness racing friend who had gone there to train. They left my brother, sister and me in Seattle with my aunt and uncle. I remember a lot about that trip. I listened to the Footloose soundtrack on a pseudo Walkman (made by…Emerson?). My aunt showed me what happens when you put salt on slugs. But I especially remember how far away and alien Macau seemed , like my folks were off visiting Venus. 
So I got a big kick out of standing on the second floor of Taipa Racecourse on Saturday, overlooking the same track that our friend Valentine Staker had trained over exactly 30 years ago. 

Before settling in at Hong Kong to cover the International Races Dec. 14, I shot over to Macau this past weekend for two nights of fun and racing. A ferry connects the two–a one-way fare will run you about $17–and the trip only takes an hour from Hong Kong Island. 

Macau, if you don’t know, is a former Portugese colony that emerges as a peninsula from the southeast coast of China. It is, along with Hong Kong, one of two “Special Administrative Regions,” as termed by China, following Portugal’s handover in 1999. (“One country, two systems,” has been the principle China has embraced with its two capitalist domains.) By area, Macau isn’t all that big–just 12.1 square miles. But with 624,000 living there, it’s the most densely populated region in the world. 

It isn’t for everybody. There are very few Western-style restaurants and almost no pubs (at least in the areas I visited). Certain crosswalks, with no walk signs, and with taxis, mopeds and lorries screaming past, seem only to indicate where a horrific accident will soon take place. Billion-dollar resorts sit next to rundown tenement housing. But if you like casino gambling, and I emphasize the gambling part, this is your place. 

One of the reasons horse racing is so popular in Hong Kong is that it’s the only game in town when it comes to gambling. It’s the exact opposite in Macau. Gambling was legalized here in 1850, and these days, Macau dwarfs Las Vegas’s numbers. Macau’s gambling revenue in 2013 was $45 billion, over four times what Las Vegas took in. That leaves horse racing in the shadows of Macau’s casinos–figuratively and literally. From Taipa’s grandstand, one can see the stately Venetian to the southeast. The $1.9-billion Galaxy Macau looms closer, with its six massive cupolas covered in 24-carat gold leaf (enough to span 87 soccer fields). 

Val’s been gone for some time, as has Harness racing in Macau. Converted into a flat track in 1989, Taipa now conducts year-round racing on both dirt and turf. On the day I went, six races were to be held, all on dirt. The purses averaged from US$25-35,000, not including the day’s feature, the $68,000 Lisboa Sand Challenge. Not Sha Tin, but not terrible. Most of the horses were Australian or New Zealand-breds, and represented sires included Fasnet Rock (Aus) and More Than Ready. 

Now, to be fair, Taipa appears to have a proper, well-appointed clubhouse, where, according to one site, “well-heeled ex-pats” and members of the Macau Jockey Club “cheer for their chosen horse.” 

But since I’m not a member of the MJC, I was turned away at the entrance of the clubhouse by an irritated guard, who pointed to a much more modest entrance 50 yards away. I walked down to that entrance, where a pleasant Nepalese guard helped me out. 

The grandstand at Taipa is, if we’re being honest, not in terrific condition. Paint is peeling from the walls in areas. Railings are rusted. Mildew’s formed where the concrete has cracked and chipped. At one point, I took the elevator to the fourth floor, just to see what was up there. Nothing but abandoned space, strewn with paper and old office equipment. (I’m guessing track regulars call it The Floor That Must Not Be Named. Or maybe just The Murder-y Place.) I didn’t get out of the elevator. 

So, it should be said, Floor 2 is where you want to be if you visit. There were maybe 200 or so regulars spread out the length of the grandstand, most filling out betting slips, since tellers here (there were three) don’t accept verbal bets. There is a broad upper area by the betting windows, then 15 rows of seating below that leading down to doors that open onto a patio. The patio overlooks the track, as well as the parked cars that occupied the track apron. 

The track itself is actually very nice. The sand track sits inside the turf course, and there is a good-sized pond and several types of pines and low bushes lining the backstretch. Beyond that are the hills of Taipa Island–the racecourse sits on this bit of land, connected to Macau by three long bridges–but the horizon is interrupted by huge, orange cranes that spring into view everywhere you look. I counted at least 15; Taipa may look very different in a few years. 

As the lone gringo in the crowd, I probably stood out, but no one paid me any mind, except for the Nepalese guard, who would come around every 45 minutes or so to chat. (He was new to the gig, wasn’t really fan of horse racing, and when I was filming the track outside with my camcorder, he came out to ask if that was allowed. I shrugged. We decided I could film outside, but not inside.) 

There was one forlorn-looking food stand. A printed sheet of paper taped to cash register listed five options in Chinese. I approached one of the two elderly ladies working there, said, “Chicken?” and she smiled and gave me a heaping serving of chicken, green peppers and onions over rice. We had a harder time with “Diet Coke,” until a fellow handicapper stepped in to help out. “Coke Zero,” he corrected. 

From a betting standpoint, I couldn’t track down an English-language racing form, but did okay just handicapping on looks and using the toteboard. Form or not, there was one recognizable name–the young French jockey Ryan Curatolo, who had nearly 200 winners in the States a few years ago, rode several races on the card. It did take me a race or two to learn how to fill out the betting slips, but the young lady at the betting window spoke some English, and after frowning and fixing my ticket, would explain what I did wrong. 

The in-track simulcast feed showed one other track, in Malaysia, I believe, and the races were perfectly synchronized. The big video screen on the toteboard showed the Malaysian races, then after a given race went official, switched over to show pre-recorded morning works of the horses about to race at Taipa–a helpful handicapping tool. 

I was having a good enough time that after the last race concluded, I stayed around to watch a few more from Malaysia while treating myself to a beer and a bag of peanuts. 

Seriously–is there any racetrack in the world that isn’t fun to be at? What a sport. 

Oh, I almost forgot. The 4-year-old Healthy Life (Aus) (Northern Meteor {Aus}), the 2-1 co-favorite, won the Lisboa Dirt Challenge (video). Didn’t mean to leave you hanging! (The victor was produced by a UAE/Darley-bred daughter of the G1 Moyglare S. winner Flamenco Wave, herself purchased as a yearling by Mike Ryan back in 1987.) 
Well, that’s it for now. Click on the link in the accompanying video box to check out more visuals of the track.