There’s a certain magic to the sun setting over the desert during the Dubai World Cup meeting at Meydan, and Hong Kong racing fans might get their own taste of twilight racing sooner rather than later.
On the sidelines of World Cup night at Meydan, chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges confirmed the Jockey Club has commenced a study into the feasibility of starting day meetings later during the hottest months of the year.
“If you talk about global warming and heat stress, one has to look at it. When you look at data, there’s definitely an increase in hot-weather days,” he said.
“We have not made a decision yet, we have multiple stakeholders to consult, and it has a significant impact on our customers. It’s likely it will become a necessity, but the question is when.”
Caspar Fownes is one trainer who has been vocal about the need for twilight meetings, suggesting last term that fixtures in June, July and September should start at 4.30pm rather than the traditional 1pm.
Engelbrecht-Bresges revealed later starts could be trialled at the back end of this season as the club tries to get a handle on the impact such a shift would have on turnover, but that would only involve changing start times rather than race dates.
“Perhaps we can learn what it might mean for next season. There has been a discussion, if we do so – are Sundays better than Saturdays?” he said.
“Changing the race schedule now would be very difficult. Therefore, we have to keep it as is for this season, but normally Sundays are better because a lot of people have to work on Saturdays. One of the issues is they like to study form, so a lot of people use Saturday evenings to study form.
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“It’s a major decision. There’s certain overlap with football, but if you do it in May and June, it’s already the off-season. But first comes first, if we feel from a horse welfare and human welfare aspect that we have to do it, then we have to do it.
“It’s not turnover of HK$20 million or HK$30 million more that’s the first priority.”
Dirt racing on borrowed time?
He might have been trackside at Meydan on Saturday night to witness the running of the US$12 million Dubai World Cup – one of the planet’s richest dirt races – but Engelbrecht-Bresges certainly didn’t mince his words when asked about the role of the surface in the future of Hong Kong racing.
With the Jockey Club aiming to resume racing in Conghua in the not-too-distant future, and with plans to increase the amount of meetings held in the mainland in time, he admitted he can see a day when Hong Kong is completely devoid of dirt racing.
“I think this is probably beyond my time, but we could get there,” said Engelbrecht-Bresges, who has only ever tolerated the all-weather track because of its necessity in the current Hong Kong racing model.
“If you look at our strategy, when you have 1,200 to 1,300 horses, you can’t be good in everything. Our strategy is turf – dirt is the filler. In an ideal world, we’d have zero dirt racing.
“If you look strategically, the only reason is the vulnerability of the turf – nothing else. It never has been a strategic objective.
“We need the dirt meetings at least twice during the season when you have the summer grass and the winter grass, but maybe you’ll have a future in Conghua. When it comes to strategy, we have to be very clear.”
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