By Alan Carasso
The Hong Kong International Sale, during which the Hong Kong Jockey Club offers to its licensed owners the opportunity to purchase race-ready horses it has acquired at auction houses from either hemisphere, has been postponed for the second time due to the COVID-19 situation in the Special Administrative Region, South China Morning Post reported Monday.
The sale typically takes place on the Friday before the BMW Hong Kong Derby in a cocktail-hour type setting in the parade ring at Sha Tin Racecourse. Officials at the HKJC tentatively rescheduled the event to Friday, May 8, but with a fresh set of coronavirus cases and tightened social distancing restrictions, the HKJC will now attempt to stage the event May 23.
“The plan would be to not make it a big show like we normally do, it would be low key and to the minimum with no frills,” Jockey Club director of racing business and operations Bill Nader told SCMP.
Should the sale proceed, it will do so without the horses acquired in the southern hemisphere, as flights have been severely impacted.
“There are 16 lots which are here from the northern hemisphere, they have been here with us for a while,” Nader told the publication. “The horses from Australia and New Zealand can't get in at the moment so they have been pushed back to the second sale which is tentatively set for July 3, but again that is touch and go. That is our target at this point and as we get closer, it will firm up.”
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