Safety first as HKJC suffers double blow due to rain and typhoon threat

The Hong Kong Jockey Club has suffered a double blow after torrential downpours forced the abandonment of the final two races at Sha Tin on Sunday and and the looming arrival of Typhoon Ragasa prompted the cancellation of Wednesday night’s Happy Valley meeting.

Officials stressed that safety remained the overriding concern, despite the loss of some HK$300 million in turnover yesterday that resulted in a tax shortfall of around HK$30 million for the government.

“Commercial aspects are not the key consideration. It is the safety,” HKJC chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges told the media at a post-meeting briefing. “And with additional races we will have later, it’s probably a delay of the income, not an abandonment.”

The Club said the two abandoned races – a Class 2 and Class 3 event, usually the highest-turnover contests on the card – will be rescheduled to Sunday. The Happy Valley fixture will be staged later in the season, likely in June or mid-July.

Yesterday’s decision came after 140 millimeters of rain fell from 3am, with conditions worsening during the meeting. After race seven, two jockeys reported that horses lost their stride on a patch at the 550m mark – the apex of the bend into the home straight and a key moment in races. Senior riders Zac Purton, Hugh Bowman and Alexis Badel inspected the track with stewards and officials before advising it was unsafe to continue.

Stephen Higgins, the Club’s Head of Raceday operations, said the risk was too great. “We all agreed that to ask them to gallop over that particular section would not be in the best interest of racing. On that basis the stewards have taken the decision to abandon racing,” Higgins said.

Engelbrecht-Bresges emphasized the need to take early action with Typhoon Ragasa now tracking toward Hong Kong. Forecasts predict hurricane-force winds and torrential rainfall by Wednesday morning.

“When you take this into consideration, we think it’s a better decision to decide not to go ahead with the race meeting on Wednesday,” he said. “So we can first of all really focus now to make our facilities as safe as possible … This seems to be the biggest [typhoon] for a long, long period of time.”

While acknowledging the financial impact, Engelbrecht-Bresges praised staff for their handling of the situation. “Safety comes first and I want to thank our track staff. They are very disappointed but they did an amazing job and I want to compliment them on what they have done under really very difficult circumstances. “They have the track in such good condition, but even they cannot stop the rain."