A total of 94,560 fans attended Sunday's Longines Hong Kong International Races meeting on a beautiful early December afternoon in the New Territories. The crowd began streaming in soon after the gates opened around 10:30 and were treated to an entertaining pre-race program in the parade ring. Jockeys and HKJC officials and other luminaries were introduced in the HKIR opening ceremony following race two before the day accelerated into the races themselves. Highland Reel (Ire) closed out a magnificent career with a second win in the Vase, while Mr Stunning (Aus) cemented his status as one of the world's best turf sprinters in race five. Beauty Generation (NZ) put on a show from the front for home-grown jockey Derek Leung in the Mile and the locally based horses made it three out of four for the first time since 2014 with Time Warp (GB)'s all-the-way success in the Mile. Total turnover was a record HK$1.59 billion (£152.4 million/US$204 million), an improvement of 5.4% over 2016.
“We want the Longines Hong Kong International Races to be the greatest show on turf and today we witnessed some sensational performances,” said HKJC CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges. “I think we are at a very high level, we have a very attractive global product, but we know that resting on laurels never works and we will sit down and see how we can develop this meeting going forward–we think this meeting has further potential as one of the sport's great world events.”
The CEO was also full of pride in Leung's success in the Mile.
“We have invested in our Apprentice Jockeys' School in the last 10 to 15 years and it's great to see a local Hong Kong talent hold his own in international company–the reaction from the crowd was fantastic,” he said.
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