Golden Sixty and Ho could give punters some good cheer

This Sunday’s going to be a fun day.

Cape Town’s DHL Stadium will host the World Rugby HSBC SVNS (Sevens) tournament with the Blitzboks, fresh from yet another success in the Dubai Series, hoping to be the toast of the town.

Around the corner, just over 19km away, Hollywoodbets Kenilworth will host a nine-race programme that features the Cape Merchants.

Add to that the final round of the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek and a not-so-small matter of four EPL games in which all of; Manchester City, Chelsea and Spurs have to bounce back after mid-week disappointments and you’ve got a supercharged sporting Sunday.

But hold your horses, for as they say in those maddening marketing infomercials, ‘wait, there’s more!’.

It’s already been a blockbuster week for horseracing fans in Hong Kong. Wednesday’s Longines International Jockeys’ Championship, run under the Happy Valley lights, proved as popular as ever with a real cherry on top for locals when hometown hero Vincent Ho won the title.

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On Sunday morning South African time, it will be the turn of the Sha Tin race circuit – just under 16km from ‘The Valley’ – to host the Longines Hong Kong International Races.

Billed by the Hong Kong Jockey Club as a day “When the World’s Greatest Meet”, the World Turf Championship features 10 races on the card with four of them being top-tier Group 1 events.

Race 4 will be the Hong Kong Vase (2400m), Race 5 the Hong Kong Sprint (1200), Race 7 Hong Kong Mile and Race 8 the HK$36 million headliner, the Hong Kong Cup (2000m).

A quick glance at some numbers will indicate the level of attraction that Sunday’s showpiece affords and it will help contextualise the enormity of the sport of horseracing in Hong Kong.

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No less than 170 international racing journalists have flown in to Hong Kong to watch and report on the Sha Tin spectacle.

In their most recent annual report the Hong Kong Jockey Club declared a record turnover of HK$304.8 billion for the financial year. That’s billion not million, and to put that figure into South African rand you’d have to multiply by the exchange of 2.42.

It is to be remembered that the HKJC is a non-profit organisation that serves community projects and approved charities. To this end the Club contributed HK$35.9 billion to the community.

There are multiple reasons not to miss the action from Sha Tin on Sunday but if you believe in following in-form jockey’s then the most pressing reason might be to watch how Vincent Ho, the hero from Wednesday night, goes in the Hong Kong Mile.

Ho is the regular pilot for champion racehorse Golden Sixty. The son of Medaglia d’Oro is a three-time Hong Kong Horse of the Year and the partnership won the race in 2020 and 2021 before being defeated by California Spangle last year.

We are into December month and the festive season is fast approaching. Punters could do with some good cheer, especially the type brought about by shouting home a favourite. Perhaps Golden Sixty could play Santa Claus, sleigh the opposition and gift his fans and Vincent Ho a very Merry Christmas with a third win in the Hong Kong Mile.

After all Santa is the father of chuckling “Ho, Ho, Ho” at Christmas.

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