Sha Tin

All 12 Hong Kong Group 1 contests during the 2024/2025 season will be part of World Pool, the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) announced on Thursday. This is the first time races in Hong Kong have been incorporated into the World Pool schedule. Hong Kong will become the ninth jurisdiction to host World Pool races, joining the UK, Ireland, Germany, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Argentina. Over 25 jurisdictions and 70 partners bet into both the Hong Kong pools and World Pool and, in season...

Breeders' Cup winner Starlust (GB) (Zoustar {Aus}) and Grade I runner-up The Foxes (Ire) (Churchill {Ire}) have both been supplemented to the Longines Hong Kong International Races, the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) announced on Tuesday. The former won the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint in the colours of Fitri Hay and trainer Ralph Beckett. A winner of the G3 Sirenia Stakes in September of 2023, the colt wound up third in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Santa Anita two starts later. This term, Starlust managed a...

Reigning Hong Kong Horse of the Year Romantic Warrior (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}) and emerging sprint star Ka Ying Rising (NZ) (Shamexpress {NZ}) laid down their markers for the Longines Hong Kong International Races meeting in three weeks' time with arrogant victories in Sunday's G2 BOCHK Jockey Club Cup and G2 BOCHK Private Banking Jockey Club Sprint at Sha Tin Racecourse, respectively. The second-named saw the 1200-metre course record, held for the last 17 years by the outstanding Sacred Kingdom (Aus) (Encosta de Lago {Aus}), come tumbling down in a sublime...

Following the news that age restrictions might be loosened to allow under 18s to attend the races in Hong Kong, a slew of improvements to Sha Tin Racecourse geared toward a younger demographic have been announced by the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The news was first reported by the South China Morning Post. In an interview with the SCMP, the HKJC CEO Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges said his organisation was "grateful that the government endorsed this and made this part of its policy address". "[You only have to] look at the whole...

Reigning Hong Kong Horse of the Year Romantic Warrior (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), winner of five elite-level events in Australia, Hong Kong and Japan in 2023-2024, kicks off what promises to be an audacious season in Sunday's G2 BOCHK Jockey Club Cup over his pet distance of 2000 metres at Sha Tin Racecourse. A history-making winner of the G1 W S Cox Plate at Moonee Valley a little over a year ago, the Tattersalls October and Hong Kong International Sale graduate defended his title in the Longines Hong Kong Cup and...

The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) reported record commingling turnover of HK$28.8 billion as the 2023/24 season concluded at Sha Tin on Sunday, with 26 countries and more than 70 partners now commingling on Hong Kong racing. That total represented a 13.7% increase on the 2022/23 season, while overall turnover on simulcasting for the season was also up by 8.7% to HK$12.8 billion as Hong Kong continued to offer wagering on the very best of world racing through the World Pool. This year the number of World Pool races increased from...

Romantic Warrior (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), winner of five Group 1 races in three different jurisdictions in 2023-2024, was named Hong Kong's Horse of the Year during a black-tie ceremony held Friday evening in the Grand Ballroom of the Rosewood Hotel in Hong Kong. The human connections of the champion 4-year-old and two-time champion middle distance horse--owner Peter Lau and trainer Danny Shum--made the G1 W S Cox Plate their early-season objective and the 300,000gns Tattersalls October graduate was a sound fourth in the G1 Turnbull Stakes at Flemington before willing...

A half-dozen years ago, Charlie Appleby mapped out a plan to send that year's G1 Dubai Sheema Classic winner Hawkbill (Kitten's Joy) to Hong Kong in an attempt to become the first overseas winner of the G1 Standard Chartered Champions and Chater Cup. Those plans were ultimately scuppered, owing perhaps in some part to a down-the-field finish by a then-unexposed Blue Point (Ire) (Shamardal) in the G1 Chairman's Sprint Prize the month prior. In the form of Rebel's Romance (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}), Appleby surmised that he had the 'right horse'...

Godolphin's globetrotting Rebel's Romance (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) should jump a white-hot favourite when he lines up against seven locally based gallopers in the final Group 1 on the annual Hong Kong racing calendar, the Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup Sunday at Sha Tin Racecourse. The 6-year-old is seeking to become the first overseas raider to take out the 2400-metre contest and the near $8-million earner enters the race in the best form of his career. A two-time Group 1 winner in Germany and victorious in the GI Breeders' Cup...

Godolphin's Rebel's Romance (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) and the Coolmore partners' Tower Of London (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) have both been entered in the G1 Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup at Sha Tin in Hong Kong on Sunday, May 26, the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) revealed on Tuesday. The pair are the only overseas entrants in the 2400-metre contest, which is the final Group 1 of the Hong Kong season with a purse of HK$13 million (£1.3 million). Both horses are also coming off of victories on Dubai World Cup...

HONG KONG, CHINA -- Relentless rains in Hong Kong's New Territories over the last week gave way to a rare dry day on Saturday, offering a sliver of hope that Sunday's FWD Champions Day meeting might take place on a surface that was sufficiently sound or at least drying out so as to leave a reasonably even playing field. The precipitation was back in the overnight hours on Sunday, never really more than a steady shower, but enough to turn the Sha Tin turf officially yielding. Three-time Hong Kong Horse...

HONG KONG, CHINA -- According to the Hong Kong Observatory, the city's weather forecast agency, about 230 millilitres of rain had fallen between the first of the year and Apr. 25. Of that amount, fully 200 mls have been recorded since the first of this month and the vast majority of that has occurred this week, as rain--at times heavy enough to completely obscure the top of the Sha Tin straight course--thunder and lightning have been just this side of relentless. The considerable precipitation has the connections of Hong Kong's...